iil»''BRIGrii 


A    MONQSRAPH 


i'JfiARRY  eitlEN 


JOHN  BRIGHT 


»      • 

*••  • 


-     -  '*  *.  »*  •••*  •  •»•  •  •«» 

»     •      ••••••       ••'  •    ,  •   *•••"• 


,  a^  p4u/tLtVTtu>h.  Otj    GHjLutCO  ^  t/TZ, 


^ymry  ^U/aUt&r  C^^. . 


/vTiJi-  ^OTVcml. 


JOHN    BRIGHT 


A   MONOGRAPH 


BY 

R.  BARRY  O'BRIEN 

AUTHOR  OF   *THE  LIFE   OF  CHARLES   STEWART  PARNELL  ' 
'  THB  LIFE  OF  LORD  RUSSELL  OF  KILLOWEN  '   ETC. 


WITH   A   PREFACE 

BY 

The  Right  Hon.  AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL,  M.P. 


WITH    PORTRAITS   AND   FACSIMILES 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

1911 


^ 


^fc 


^^% 


0 


AUTHOR'S   NOTE 

I  WISH  to  express  my  acknowledgments  to  John 
Blight's  daughters,  Mrs.  Clark  and  Mrs.  Bernard 
Roth,  and  to  his  son,  Mr.  John  Albert  Bright,  for 
the  kindness  and  courtesy  which  they  have  shown 
me  in  the  preparation  of  this  book.  Nor  must  I 
omit  the  expression  of  my  warm  thanks  to  Mr.  Birrell 
for  his  notable  offering  of  friendship  in  the  com- 
position of  a  preface  for  which  I  alone  shall  not  be  his 
debtor.  Mr.  William  Leatham  Bright,  who  also  was 
good  enough  to  interest  himself  in  my  work,  has 
recently  passed  away ;  and  I  desire  respectfully  to 
tender  sympathy  to  his  family  in  their  bereavement. 

Since  I  was  a  boy,  I  have  felt  the  greatest  admira- 
tion for  the  public  life  of  John  Bright,  and  I  have 
endeavoured,  however  imperfectly,  in  these  pages 
(written  at  the  request  of  my  friend  and  pubhsher 
Mr.  Reginald  Smith)  to  portray  his  character,  and 
to  do  justice  to  his  memory. 

R.  BARRY  O'BRIEN. 
October  i,  1910. 


242379 


PREFACE 

My  friend  Mr.  Barry  O'Brien,  having  composed  the 
following  sketch  of  the  public  life  of  John  Bright, 
asked  me,  for  the  love  I  bear  him,  to  prefix  a  Preface, 
which  I  consented  to  do,  although  entertaining  what 
I  am  convinced  is  a  well-grounded  objection  to  the 
introduction  of  extraneous  matter  into  the  work  of 
another  man's  hand.  But  we  are  seldom  free 
agents,  particularly  in  later  life.  In  one  of  Bright's 
speeches,  made  immediately  after  his  reluctant  ac- 
ceptance of  office,  there  occurs  the  following  moving 
passage : 

It  was  a  dream  that  I  had  in  my  youth — I  suppose 
it  must  have  originated  in  the  thraldom  of  my  school- 
days— that  as  I  advanced  in  life  I  should  find  myself 
more  at  liberty  and  less  under  the  control  of  circum- 
stances or  of  the  opinion  of  others.  I  find  that  was 
altogether  a  dream,  and  that  the  longer  I  live  the 
less  I  seem  to  be  my  own  master.  I  find  myself 
from  year  to  year  becoming  more  of  what  I  may  term 
almost  a  bond-slave,  and  my  masters  becoming  from 
year  to  year  more  numerous  and  more  exacting. 
The  proof  of  all  this  is  that  I  am  here  to-day,  and  in 
a  new  character — one  which  I  had  never  expected  to 

vii 


PREFACE 

assume,  and  one  which  I  have  assumed  with  extreme 
reluctance.^ 

This  quotation  may  well  serve  a  double  purpose — 
as  an  apology  for  this  Preface  and  (which  is  really 
important)  as  a  useful  peep-hole  into  the  essential 
solitariness  of  Bright's  character ;  for  he,  like  Milton, 
was  a  non-gregarious  man,  who,  however  much  he 
believed  himself  to  be  married  to  the  masses,  always 
preferred  to  dwell  apart. 

As  is  naturally  to  be  looked  for  in  any  book  of 
my  friend's,  the  Irish  point  of  view  predominates; 
but  no  one  can  fairly  say,  in  this  instance  at  all  events, 
that  it  is  an  undue  predominance,  for  both  the  Irish 
and  Ireland  figure  largely  in  Bright's  speeches  (and 
his  life  was  in  his  speeches),  and  give  colour  to  much 
of  his  political  criticism.  Above  everything  else  John 
Bright  was  a  critic — I  need  not  add,  a  most  unsparing 
critic — of  the  politics  and  the  politicians  of  his  own 
time  ;  and  to  anyone  so  minded,  Ireland  is  a  subject 
always  at  hand. 

It  was  said  of  Bright,  who  like  all  critics  was  him- 
self criticised,  that  he  hated  '  the  governing  classes,' 
who  in  their  turn,  being  prompted  thereto  both  by 
the  order  of  their  minds  and  from  a  sense  of  harsh 
and  unsympathetic  treatment  at  his  mouth,  returned 
the  compliment.  For  the  greater  part  of  Bright's 
life  he  was  a  much  hated  man,  brutally  caricatured, 
coarsely  abused.  It  is  strange  in  these  days,  already 
so  far  remote  from  Bright's,  whilst  turning  over 
the    pages   of   his   three   volumes    of   Speeches    and 

^  Public  Addresses,  1879,  p.  156. 

viii 


PREFACE 

Addresses,  to  reflect  that  for  a  long  time,  ana  in 
the  minds  of  many,  their  author  appeared  to  be  the 
very  type  of  the  dangerous  demagogue  who  set 
class  against  class,  and  went  about  spreading  dissen- 
sion throughout  a  well-ordered  community.  Yet  so 
it  was. 

In  this  matter  of  abuse  Mr.  Bright  does  not  appear 
to  have  been  very  sensitive.  His  was  a  self-possessed, 
self-contained  figure,  with  a  positive  genius  for  scorning 
his  enemies.  You  could  see  it  in  his  mouth,  which 
seemed  fashioned  to  express  contempt.  He  had  not 
the  faintest  desire  to  enter  into  what  is  called  Society. 
Like  the  Shunammite  woman  of  old,  whom  by  a  famous 
quotation  he  first  introduced  to  the  notice  of  fashionable 
folk,  he  was  content  to  dwell  among  his  own  people, 
and  not  too  many  even  of  them.  This  perfectly 
genuine  attitude  of  mind — the  true  Quaker's — proved 
most  irritating.  That  odd  personage  Sir  WiUiam 
Fraser,  who  sat  in  Parliament  with  Bright,  has  left 
on  record  how  he  smarted  under  the  lash  of  Bright's 
scornful  countenance.  Cobden,  Sir  William  rather 
liked,  thinking  that  there  was  discernible  in  him  some 
faint  glimmer  of  a  recognition  of  the  native  superiority 
of  the  Knight  of  Morar,  but  John  Bright's  case  was 
hopeless.  He  not  only  called  the  Tories  fools,  but  too 
evidently  believed  that  fools  they  really  were,  and 
Fraser  among  the  number. 

Instincts  like  Fraser' s  may  usually  be  trusted ;  and 
it  would  certainly  appear  as  if  Bright  did  find  great 
and  constant  happiness  in  the  reflexion,  in  which  he 
often  indulged,  that  whilst  the  Tories  were  always 
wrong,  he  was  invariably  right. 

ix 


PREFACE 

'  Our  disasters,  which  are  by  no  means  infrequent, 
are  always  followed  at  no  distant  period  by  a  corre- 
sponding triumph ;  whereas  with  our  Tory  friends 
a  disaster  is  generally  final  and  irreversible.  Their 
policy  and  their  principles,  when  once  overthrown 
by  the  advancing  intelligence  of  the  people,  are  buried, 
and  they  hope  for  no  resurrection/ 

'  The  end  we  seek  is  not  only  desirable  in  the  ordinary 
use  of  that  term,  but  it  is,  as  we  believe,  good  in  the 
highest  degree;  and  whether  we  look  backwards  or 
forwards,  to  the  past  or  to  the  future,  I  think  we  have 
attendant  upon  us  constantly  a  sense  of  continual 
progress.  Our  friends  the  Tories  unhappily  are  in 
a  very  different  position.' 

*  Only  imagine,  and  if  you  can  imagine  it  will  excite 
your  commiseration,  how  these  men  have  been  misled 
from  time  to  time,  how  they  have  been  alarmed,  how 
they  have  striven  as  if  for  life  against  the  very  things 
that  were  most  calculated  to  do  them  good,  how 
they  have  spent  time  and  money  in  fighting  contested 
elections  to  lose  which  would  be  the  greatest  possible 
advantage  to  them  and  to  the  country.' 

'  I  must  say  I  feel  a  great  commiseration  for  the 
Tory  Party,  for  it  seems  to  me  that  their  political 
life  must  be  one  unvarying  cup  of  sorrow  and  dis- 
appointment.' ^ 

These  cheerful  aphorisms,  all  culled  from  one 
speech  made  in  Rochdale  during  Christmas  week,  1867, 
are  eminently  characteristic  of  Mr.  Bright' s  frame 
of  mind.  Regarded  as  final  meditations  among  the 
tombs  of  the  Tories,  they  may  be  too  much  in  one 
strain  to  satisfy  the  critical  sense  of  succeeding  genera- 
tions ;  but  let  no  Tory  of  the  present  day  affect  to  put 
them  lightly  on  one  side  until  he  has  made  himself 

^  Public  Addresses,  pp.  40,  41,  42. 
X 


PREFACE 

acquainted  with  the  pohtical  career  of  that  Lord 
Derby  who,  in  1834,  l^^t  the  Whigs  because  he  would 
not  enquire  into  or  interfere  with  the  revenues  of 
the  Irish  Estabhshed  Church ;  who,  in  1846,  deserted 
Sir  Robert  Peel  when  corn  was  to  be  made  cheap 
in  the  face  of  famine;  and  who,  in  1867,  was  the 
harlequin  who  hauled  down  the  Tory  flag,  and  let 
in  upon  us  the  waters  of  household  suffrage. 

Mr.  Bright  may  have  fiddled  too  continuously 
on  one  string,  but  it  was  a  strong  string  and,  in  his 
hands,  made  martial  music. 

It  seems  now  generally  admitted  that  Bright  was 
the  greatest  orator  of  his  time  in  England,  both  in 
the  House  of  Commons  and  out  of  it.  Though  not 
profound  or  subtle,  he  was  a  clear  thinker,  and  had 
full  command  of  his  mother-tongue ;  his  English 
was  noble,  his  sentences  short,  his  independence 
obvious,  his  voice  melodious  and  commanding,  and 
whilst  on  occasions  he  had  a  biting  wit,  he  had  at 
all  times,  as  already  mentioned,  an  infinite  capacity 
for  the  expression  of  scorn. 

He  stood  before  his  audience  like  a  tower : 

Foursquare  to  all  the  winds  that  blew. 

He  always  looked  exactly  the  same  mixture  of 
strength  and  simplicity.  When  speaking  on  the  plat- 
form he  came  straight  up  to  the  edge,  never  hiding 
behind  a  desk.  He  once  said  to  a  speaker  who  showed 
a  desire  to  conceal  himself,  at  least  partially,  behind 
a  row  of  flower-pots — '  No  man  can  move  an  audience 
that  does  not  see  his  boots.*  You  saw  Bright  from 
head  to  heel,  and  every  syllable  as  it  fell  from  his  lips 

xi 


PREFACE 

reached  your  ear.  I  heard  him  several  times  on  the 
platform  but  never  in  the  House.  I  wish  it  had 
been  otherwise,  for  the  truest  test  of  oratory  is  a 
divided  audience. 

I  remember  hearing  Bright  in  1868  address  a  huge 
gathering  of  Welshmen  in  Liverpool.  We  knew  the 
Welsh  very  well  in  Liverpool  in  those  days,  and  were 
delighted  to  think  they  were  to  be  praised  by  so 
accomplished  an  orator ;  but  one  or  two  of  us,  belonging 
no  doubt  to  other  and  more  disagreeable  nationalities, 
found  ourselves,  once  or  twice,  on  the  verge  of  the 
wish  that  somewhere  in  the  course  of  his  speech  he 
could  have  found  it  just  possible  to  '  hint  a  fault.' 

One  passage  of  this  speech  lives  in  a  memory, 
undimmed  by  the  passage  of  forty-two  years,  as  a 
prodigious  triumph.  The  whole  speech  is  to  be  found 
in  the  '  Public  Addresses,'  but  so  far  as  this  particular 
passage  is  concerned  I  will  pit  my  forty-two  years*  old 
memory  against  Mr.  Thorold  Rogers'  reprint.  Bright 
said : 

I  was  lately  at  Dolgelly  when  her  Majesty's 
representatives,  the  Judges  of  Assize,  came  round 
in  style,  pomp,  and  circumstance.  The  High  Sheriff 
was  there  with  his  carriages  and  horses,  and  the 
Judges,  of  course,  were  there,  with  their  retinue  and 
cooks.  On  Sunday  they  all  went  to  church ;  not  to 
the  church  of  the  people.  But,  gentlemen,  there 
was  only  one  prisoner — and  he  was  a  tramp — come 
from  England. 

The  effect  was,  as  I  have  said,  prodigious.  The 
Welsh  audience  seemed,  like  a  great  cat,  to  rise  to  its 
feet,  to  arch  a  mighty  back,  and  to  purr  forth  an 

xii 


V 


PREFACE 

infinite  self-satisfaction.  Just  then  it  must  have  been 
that  the  dissatisfied  aUens  fell  to  grumbling. 

Bright  in  the  House  of  Commons,  full  of  its  Frasers  ; 
the  mouth-piece  of  a  detested  minority ;  pleading 
for  peace  in  time  of  war ;  expressing  the  unpalatable 
in  words  not  to  be  denied ;  ridiculing  the  statesman- 
ship of  the  favourites  of  the  hour  ;  scornfully  critical, 
yet  with  passages  bringing  tears  to  the  eyes ;  and 
all  this  in  plain  yet  noble  English,  without  any  trick 
of  manner  or  foppery  of  discourse — if  Bright  on 
the  platform  was  often  great,  Bright  in  the  House  of 
Commons  was  frequently  sublime. 

The  main  subjects  of  Bright' s  speeches  were  Ireland, 
India,  Free  Trade,  the  Crimean  War,  Reform  of 
Parliament,  and  Public  Expenditure.  Great  themes 
indeed  !  Of  each  we  must  sorrowfully  add,  for  strife 
is  wearisome,  sed  finis,  nondum  est ! 

To  Disraeli  and  to  Bright,  that  ill-matched  but 
splendid  pair,  belong  the  credit  of  an  early  insight  into 
the  Irish  problem  so  long  denied  to  their  most  famous 
contemporary,  Gladstone.  The  Novelist  and  the 
Quaker  enjoyed  the  great  advantages  of  an  irregular 
education  and  most  leisurely  occupations.  It  was 
not  so  much  that  they  had  time  to  think,  for  neither 
was  ever,  I  suppose,  a  great  thinker,  as  that  they 
were  free,  from  the  beginning,  to  think  for  themselves, 
unhampered  by  authority  or  routine.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
on  the  other  hand,  seemed  born  in  blinkers,  and 
was  early  entangled  in  the  great  political  machine, 
where  for  long  he  sat 

Eyeless  at  Gaza 
At  the  mill  with  slaves. 

xiii  ^ 

\ 


PREFACE 

But  when  '  our  great  Deliverer '  did  begin  to  think 
for  himself,  it  was  he  who  first  reduced  into  action 
Disraeli's  inspired  words  about  an  alien  Church  and 
an  absentee  aristocracy. 

Ireland's  alien  Church  looms  large  in  Bright's 
speeches,  for  he  hated  establishments  with  a  pure  and 
unencumbered  hatred.  He  had  no  rival  system  of 
theology,  he  smarted  under  no  social  ostracism, 
for  if  he  ever  wanted  to  play  croquet  he  could  do  so 
on  many  a  smooth  Quaker  lawn,  but  he  hated  estab- 
lishments in  their  essential  quiddity.  In  his  opinion, 
they  secularised  the  things  of  God  without  imparting 
even  a  tinge  of  true  religion  to  the  affairs  of  State. 
They  did  Caesar  no  good,  and  Caiaphas  great  harm. 

He  was  very  fond  of  pursuing  a  course  of  reflexion, 
for  doing  which  I  was  once  reproved  in  print  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Here  is  an  example  of 
it,  taken  from  the  very  same  speech  I  heard  Bright 
address  to  the  Welshmen  in  Liverpool  forty-two 
years  ago : 

For  the  last  two  hundred  years,  up  to  the  end  of 
the  great  war  with  France,  this  country  was  almost 
constantly  engaged  in  war.  I  never  knew  the  arch- 
bishops and  bishops  of  the  Church  of  England  meet 
to  promote  peace  and  condemn  war.  When  the 
great  question  of  slavery  agitated  the  country,  though 
there  were  some  of  them  that  gave  their  support  to 
the  right  side  on  that  question,  there  was  no  combined 
and  unanimous  movement  in  regard  to  it.  When 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago  we  met,  probably 
in  this  very  building,  to  denounce  one  of  the  greatest 
iniquities  that  ever  assumed  the  form  of  law — the 
Corn  Law — the  archbishops    and  bishops  never  for 

xiv 


PREFACE 

one  moment  deemed  it  their  duty  to  express  an  opinion 
upon  the  question  or,  so  far  as  we  know,  to  give  it  fivv. 
minutes'  examination.  I  have  never  known  them 
in  England  or  Ireland,  in  the  most  calamitous  days 
of  our  modern  history — I  have  never  known  them 
come  forward  in  any  combined  manner  to  expose  the 
sufferings  and  denounce  the  wrongs  which  were 
practised  upon  their  poorer  countrymen.^ 

What  was  true  in  1868  may  very  well  have  ceased 
to  be  equally  true  in  1910 ;  but  one  may  safely 
say  that  wherever  and  whenever  there  was  an  Estab- 
lished Church,  Mr.  Bright  would  have  cried  aloud, 
*  Cut  it  down ;  why  cumbereth  it  the  ground  ?  '  and 
he  would  certainly  have  found  in  the  respect  now 
universally  entertained  throughout  Catholic  Ireland  for 
the  Disestablished  Episcopal  Protestant  Church  and 
in  her  prosperity  additional  arguments  to  prove  that 
as  usual  he  was  right  and  the  Tories  wrong. 

It  may  well  be  that  Bright  exaggerated  what 
would  be  the  result  of  Disestablishment  in  Ireland : 

The  whole  condition  of  Ireland  would  be  changed, 
for  ancient  grievances  would  be  redressed  ;  their 
strife  would  cease  and  justice  would  have  iDecome 
in  Ireland  a  guiding  principle  of  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment. I  believe  that  we  should  soon  begin  to  have, 
and  should  ultimately  have,  a  united  nation  and  a 
loyal  people.^ 

No  one,  however,  will  now  deny  that  the  disestablish- 
ment of  Disraeli's  *  alien  Church  '  was  a  fine  bit  of  work. 

Bright  saw  with  at  least  equal  clearness  of  vision 
that  there  was  a  Land  Question  in  Ireland  as  well  as 

^  Public  Addresses,  p.  77.  ^  Public  Addresses,  p.  81. 

XV  ^2 


PREFACE 

a  Church  Question.  The  '  absentee  aristocracy  '  had 
to  be  dealt  with  in  the  same  bold  spirit  as  the  '  alien 
Church/  Bright  was  a  land  purchase  man  in  every 
bone  of  his  body.  He  was  no  fonder  of  '  the  State  * 
than  he  was  of  '  the  governing  classes.'  Collec- 
tivism would  have  inspired  nothing  but  dislike  in  his 
breast.  He  was,  it  is  well  to  repeat  it,  a  solitary  man 
who  liked  best  to  be  left  alone.  To  march  to  heaven 
in  a  joyful  company,  singing  part-songs  as  they  went 
along,  was  not  his  notion  of  the  comforts  of  religion. 
And  so  with  the  land  in  Ireland,  his  idea  was  that  all 
the  '  strong  farmers  *  should  be  turned  into  owners  as 
quickly  as  possible.  He  did  not  see,  perhaps  he 
would  have  refused  to  see,  the  extent  of  the  problem, 
particularly  in  the  West — the  land-hunger  of  the 
landless  man,  the  uneconomic  holding,  the  difficulties 
of  migration,  the  contest  between  grazing  and  tillage, 
the  necessity  for  co-operation  and  for  the  provision 
of  stock  and  instruction  in  agriculture — but  what  he 
did  see  he  saw  plainly,  and  so  became  the  great  pre- 
cursor of  land  purchase  in  Ireland. 

In  Disraeli's  famous  utterance — the  most  remark- 
able, Mr.  Gladstone  used  to  say,  that  he  had  ever 
heard  in  Parliament — there  was,  in  addition  to  a 
starving  people,  an  alien  Church,  and  an  absentee 
aristocracy,  a  fourth  element  of  the  Irish  problem — 
the  weakest  Executive  in  the  world. 

On  this  point  Mr.  Bright  was  not  sympathetic 
towards  the  Irish  demands.  Like  every  true-born 
Englishman,  he  was  encased  in  an  unfeeling  armour 
towards  mere  historical  claims  to  separate  treatment. 
Given  an  extended  franchise,  the  ballot,  free  speech, 

xvi 


PREFACE 

and  a  free  Press,  what  more  can  anybody  want  ? 
The  Union  was,  he  admitted,  'a  fraudful  thing,'  but  it 
all  happened  before  the  great  Reform  Bill.  Mr.  Barry 
O'Brien  deals  very  clearly  and  candidly  with  this 
matter,  and  I  need  say  no  more  about  it  in  this  place. 

To  India  Mr.  Bright  probably  devoted  more  study 
and  application  than  to  any  other  subject.  He  felt 
strongly  about  it.  He  never  was  in  favour  of  giving 
India  up. 

But  people  may  say  then,  '  Perhaps  you  will 
give  up  India,'  and  I  should  say  'No,'  but  I  think 
it  is  worth  while  to  become  a  little  more  rational 
about  it.  No ;  I  do  not  propose  to  give  up  India  ; 
all  I  propose  is  that  we  should  try  to  make  the  best 
of  it  and  not  the  worst  of  it,  and  shake  off  the  childish 
terror  by  which  we  have  been  possessed.^ 

Mr.  Bright' s  Indian  speeches  made  him  many 
enemies  in  the  ranks  of  our  Civil  servants  at  work  in 
those  regions.  He  had  a  disagreeable  way  of  talking 
about  them  and  about  their  favourite  health  resort  of 
Simla.  Exiles  do  not  like  having  slights  put  upon 
them  by  '  stay-at-homes.'  It  was  all  part  of  Bright's 
general  attitude  towards  the  governing  classes.  It 
was  a  great  pity,  for  he  said  a  good  many  things  about 
India  that  well  deserved  attention.  It  was  a  capital 
thought  of  Mr.  O'Brien's  to  prevail  upon  Sir  Alfred 
Lyall  to  put  in  writing  what  he  thinks  of  some  of 
Mr.  Bright's  suggestions ;  for  suggestions  he  did  make, 
as  Mr.  O'Brien  is  at  the  pains  to  point  out,  for  the 
better  government  of   India — the  heaviest  task  surely 

^  Public  Addresses,  pp.  502,  503. 

xvii 


PREFACE 

that  was  ever  imposed  by  the  course  of  events  upon 
a  Western  democracy.  Taking  up  the  '  Law  List ' 
for  the  year  in  the  Library  of  the  House  of  Commons 
the  other  day,  I  noticed  that  now  the  commonest 
names  of  the  members  of  the  EngHsh  Bar,  called 
by  our  ancient  Inns  of  Court,  and  sharing  the  honour 
with  Smith  and  Brown  and  Jones,  are  Kahn  and 
Singh  and  Sen.     Even  a  '  Law  List '  may  make  us  think. 

About  the  great  battle  for  the  repeal  of  the  Corn 
Law  Mr.  O'Brien  has,  of  course,  much  to  say.  It 
was  a  genuine  thought-movement,  and  with  one  of 
the  most  persuasive  speakers  England  ever  produced, 
Richard  Cobden,  at  its  head,  its  educational  effects 
were  far  greater  and  more  permanent  than  is  usually 
the  case  in  our  political  controversies.  Mr.  Bright' s 
admiration  and  affection  for  Cobden  are  all  the 
pleasanter  to  notice  because  he  was  not  by  nature  a 
man  much  addicted  to  admiration.  Everyone  should 
read  Bright' s  address  when  unveiling  Cobden' s  statue 
at  Bradford  in  July  1877.  (See  '  Public  Addresses,' 
P-  355-)    It  is  one  of  the  great  pieces  of  English  speech. 

The  Crimean  War  was  also  the  subject  of  one  of 
Bright's  most  famous  speeches.  Mr.  O'Brien  naturally 
quotes  from  it. 

The  first  Lord  Lytton  composed  a  well-known 
couplet : 

Let  Bright  responsible  for  England  be, 

And  straight  in  Bright  a  Chatham  we  should  see. 

I  have  often  wondered  whether  this  was  sound  criticism. 
That  Bright  genuinely  hated  war  is  certain.  He  was  one 
of  the  few  civilians  who  really  do  so.     Yet  he  was  a  very 

xviii 


PREFACE 

positive  man,  and  positive  men  in  power,  with  thunder- 
bolts in  their  hands,  are  not  to  be  trusted  to  keep  the 
peace  in  all  circumstances.  With  Bright  in  a  Chat- 
ham's place  we  should  not  have  had  Palmerston's 
wars  :  we  might  have  had  Bright* s  wars.  But  we 
should  not  have  had  the  Crimean  War.  Mr.  O'Brien 
has  thought  fit,  renovare  dolorem,  to  tell  over  again 
the  melancholy  tale  how,  in  Lord  Salisbury's  phrase, 
'  We  put  our  money  on  the  wrong  horse.'  Such  a 
verdict,  when  we  think  of  the  quarter  of  a  million  of 
lives  and  the  millions  of  the  tax-payers'  money 
involved  in  it,  makes  the  blood  run  cold,  and  is  a 
complete  vindication  of  every  word  Bright  uttered 
during  these  horrible  years.  But  Mr.  Gladstone 
remained  impenitent  to  the  end. 

The  struggle  between  the  Southern  States  of 
America  and  the  Federalists,  the  most  stupendous 
event  of  the  last  century,  brought  out  another  aspect 
of  Bright' s  character.  Here  was  a  war  which,  at  all 
events,  was  not  the  product  of  the  stupidity  of  the 
old  governing  classes,  or  of  any  stale  notions  about 
the  balance  of  power ;  a  war  that  was  not  fed  and 
fostered  by  professional  soldiers  out  of  work,  in 
search  of  peerages  and  pensions,  but  a  war  of  moral 
grandeur  and  significance  which,  after  a  prodigious 
loss  of  life  and  treasure,  was  to  end,  not  in  the  temporary 
closing  of  an  inland  sea,  but  in  finally  ridding  the 
world  of  a  crime  against  humanity,  and  in  the  welding 
together  of  a  confederation  of  States  which  was 
— so  it  was  Bright' s  supreme  happiness  to  believe — 
destined  to  show  the  universe  how  a  Republic  could 
exist   *  without  a  great  army,  and  without  a  great 

xix 


PREFACE 

navy,  not  mixing  itself  up  with  the  entanglements 
of  European  politics,  without  a  Custom-house  inside, 
throughout  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  its  terri- 
tory, and  with  freedom  everywhere,  equality  every- 
where, law  everywhere,  peace  everywhere/ 

Such  a  confederation,  Mr.  Bright  declared,  '  would 
afford  at  least  some  hope  that  man  is  not  forsaken  of 
Heaven/ 

The  race  of  man,  a  poet  of  our  own  day  has 
reminded  us,  has  been  long  fed  on  boundless  hopes, 
and  it  would  be  both  foolish  and  unkind  to  linger  here 
a  single  moment  to  dissect  a  dream.  The  United 
States  of  America,  though  not  yet  Utopia,  nor  travelling 
along  the  route  Bright  prospected  for  them,  are  still 
united ;  and  for  half  a  century  now  last  past  their 
newspapers  have  contained  no  advertisements  for  the 
sale  of  men,  women,  and  children,  '  either  together 
or  in  lots,'  and  have  proffered  no  rewards  for  the 
recovery  of  runaway  slaves,  '  easily  recognisable  by 
the  scars  on  their  backs.' 

It  was  characteristic  of  Bright's  impersonal  and 
impatient  politics  that  he  never  could  be  got  even 
to  sympathise  with  the  hold  'State  rights'  had  over 
men's  minds,  as  against  '  Federal  rights.'  General 
Lee  hated  slavery  no  less  than  Bright,  but  he  was  a 
Virginian. 

Bright' s  speech  at  the  breakfast  given  in  London 
to  Mr.  Lloyd  Garrison  in  June  1867  is  perhaps  the 
most  beautiful  speech  ever  made  in  the  English  tongue 
on  a  public  occasion.  It  was  just  like  Bright  to  be 
able  to  speak  as  well  immediately  after  breakfast  as 
at  any  other  period  of  the  day. 

XX 


PREFACE 

During  the  greater  part  of  the  last  century  Parha- 
mentary  Reform  was  the  great  school  for  oratory. 
We  can  now  survey  the  records  with  a  discriminat- 
ing eye.  Grey,  Russell,  Macaulay,  Bright,  Disraeli, 
Gladstone,  and  Lowe  stand  out  in  bold  relief.  There 
is  much  matter  in  the  speeches  of  these  remarkable 
men  on  this  subject — a  great  deal  of  English  history 
and  much  of  English  character.  Bright' s  speeches 
and  Lowe's  are,  I  think,  the  most  pleasant  still  to  read. 
It  is  almost  certain  that  Lowe  hated  the  coming 
democracy  more  than  Bright  loved  it,  and  this  lends 
to  the  fiery  philippics  of  the  former  a  note  of  personal 
fear  and  dislike  somewhat  unusual  in  our  cold-blooded 
politics.  The  encounters  between  these  two  men  on 
this  subject  are  amongst  the  most  amusing  in  Hansard. 

Bright  on  Public  Expenditure  is  always  worth 
reading.  He  knew  the  House  of  Commons  well,  both 
what  it  can  do  and  what  it  cannot.  Tories  can  hardly 
be  expected  to  care  greatly  for  Bright.  He  would  not 
expect  it  of  them.  A  moment  ago,  whilst  searching  for 
a  reference  in  the  Index  of  one  of  his  three  volumes, 
I  came  across  this — 

'  Lying,  enormous,  of  Tories,  255.' 

Nobody  can  be  always  lying ;  and  even  a  Tory,  when 
not  so  occupied,  will  admit  that,  knowing  as  Bright 
did  a  great  deal  about  the  House  of  Commons,  he 
knew  that,  as  a  critic  of  the  Estimates,  it  is,  under 
the  present  system,  of  no  use  whatever.  Hear  him 
for  a  moment  on  this  grave  and  living  subject : 

You  often  hear  complaints  that  members  do  not 
examine   and   criticise   the   Estimates.     I   have  read 

xxi 


PREFACE 

newspapers  which  make  a  great  point  of  finding  fault 
with  me.  They  are  fond  of  saying :  '  Why  does  he  not, 
instead  of  declaiming  against  the  expenditure  in  the 
Birmingham  Town  Hall,  attend  the  Committees  of  the 
House  and  fight  the  Estimates  ? '  The  man  who  tells 
you  that  is  either  a  knave  or  a  fool.  Mr.  Hume  fought 
the  Estimates  for  forty  years  and  they  always  grew, 
even  in  his  hands,  and  the  fighting  cannot  be  done  in  the 
House  of  Commons  under  the  present  system.  So  con- 
scious is  nearly  everyone  of  this,  that  at  present  in  Com- 
mittees of  the  House  scarcely  anybody  attends  to  listen 
or  to  criticise,  except  the  representatives  of  the  army 
and  navy,  and  their  criticism  almost  always  goes 
in  favour  of  increasing  rather  than  of  diminishing 
the  expenditure.  But  we  should  not  accept  what  the 
Horse  Guards  say,  or  what  the  Admiralty  says,  or  what 
the  Cabinet  says,  but  we  ought  to  have  an  honestly 
chosen  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  whom 
these  matters  should  be  referred,  and  that  Committee 
should  recommend  whatever  charges  it  thinks  proper 
after  taking  evidence  upon  every  point.  I  am  of 
opinion  that  the  time  is  coming  when  the  people  of 
England  will  discover  that  this  question  is  of  very 
grave  importance.^ 

This  is  a  more  valuable  quotation  to  make  at 
the  present  time  than  any  of  Bright' s  frequent  jere- 
miads over  the  ever  increasing  expenditure  of  the 
country.  The  figures  that  shocked  him  in  1868 — 
£26,000,000  a  year  on  the  sea  and  land  forces — appear 
to  us,  now  that  they  have  grown  to  £70,000,000  (which 
in  1868  was  the  total  expenditure  on  all  accounts), 
almost  impossibly  small.  The  truth  is,  we  have  got 
to  accustom  ourselves  to  bigger  and  bigger  figures, 

^  Pubhc  Addresses,  p.  196. 

xxii 


PREFACE 

for  whatever  may  hereafter  be  saved  on  armaments 
will  all  be  swallowed  up  by  a  ravenous  social  programme. 
All  the  more  important,  therefore,  is  it  to  discover 
some  method  whereby  so  gigantic  and  so  dangerous 
an  expenditure  may  be  criticised  and  controlled  by 
the  representatives  of  the  tax-payers. 

Mr.  O'Brien,  though  his  talks  with  Bright  are 
interesting  and  characteristic,  is  not  able  to  add  much 
to  our  scanty  personalia.  Indeed,  in  one  particular, 
he  must  be  pronounced  what  Carlyle  used  to  call  *  a 
frightful  minus  quantity,'  for  he  goes  some  way  to 
destroy  one  of  the  few  traditions  that  exist  as  to  the 
habits  of  the  great  Tribune. 

Forty  years  ago  all  good  Radicals  believed  that 
their  favourite  orator  was  also  a  famous  angler — 
not  in  the  lake  of  darkness,  though  many  half-pay 
colonels  would  have  found  no  difficulty  in  believing 
that,  but  in  the  lochs  and  rivers  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
Salmon  was  said  to  be  his  noble  quarry.  Outwardly, 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  Bright  pursued  this  avocation. 
I  myself  once  saw  him  at  Taynuilt,  marching  down 
to  the  Awe,  rod  in  hand,  a  sober  yet  (apparently)  an 
effective  figure.  We  all  love  the  incongruous,  and  here, 
firmly  imbedded  in  the  Bright  tradition,  was  the  very 
note  we  love.  Mr.  O'Brien  now  comes  along  and 
quotes  one  of  Mr.  Bright's  hosts  in  Scotland,  where 
the  great  man  was  supposed  to  come  '  for  the  fishing ! ' 

He  [Bright]  was  very  fond  of  fishing,  but  he  knew 
nothing  about  it.  He  could  never  be  persuaded  to 
hold  the  rod  properly.  He  used  always  to  hold  it 
straight  out  as  a  coachman  holds  a  whip.     He  scarcely 

xxiii 


PREFACE 

ever  caught  anything.  But  he  enjoyed  himself,  standing 
on  the  bank  of  a  river  or  sitting  in  a  boat,  waiting 
calmly.     He  liked  solitude. 

Disraeli  used  to  carry  a  pocket  ^schylus  about 
with  him  wherever  he  went,  yet  according  to  his 
admirer.  Sir  William  Fraser,  he  could  hardly  read  a 
line  of  Greek ;  and  now  we  hear  of  Bright  carrying 
a  salmon-rod  about  with  him  yet,  according  to  this 
authority,  not  knowing  how  to  hold  it.  We  shall  be 
told  next  that  Mr.  Gladstone  never  really  cut  down 
a  tree. 

I,  for  one,  am  not  disposed  to  give  up  the 
fishing  tradition  without  a  struggle.  Some  people  have 
absurdly  high  standards.  Among  the  many  beauti- 
ful passages  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  masters 
of  English  prose  about  their  schools  and  schoolmasters, 
I  have  long  treasured  in  my  memory,  as  one  of  the 
pleasantest  and  most  sincere,  a  description  given  by 
Bright  of  the  last  school  he  ever  attended : 

I  was  at  school  in  this  town  [Rochdale]  when  I 
was  a  very  small  boy.  After  leaving  this  town  I  was 
at  no  less  than  four  of  what  were  called  very  respectable 
and  sufficient  boarding  schools  in  that  day,  but  I  never 
heard  anything  there,  to  my  present  recollection, 
about  science,  and  very  little  about  art.  The  last 
school  I  was  at  was  the  one  with  regard  to  which  I 
have  most  pleasant  recollections,  for  it  was  situated  in 
a  very  nice  valley  and  by  the  side  of  a  very  pleasant 
river  ;  and  studies  were  not  forced  upon  us  with  undue 
harshness,  but  we  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  in  birds'- 
nesting  and  fishing  in  the  river  Hodder,  chiefly  for  trout, 
and  frequently  during  the  summer  months  in  bathing 
and  swimming  in  one  of  the  pools  of  that  pleasant 

xxiv 


PREFACE 

stream.  I  did  not  get  much  of  what  was  called 
education.  What  I  got  was  something,  I  had  almost 
said,  far  better,  for  I  got,  I  believe,  whatever  store 
of  good  health  I  have  had  from  that  time  to  this.  ^ 

I  believe  in  those  Hodder  trout.  Perhaps  it  was 
only  salmon  Bright  could  never  catch. 

The  angling  fraternity,  some  of  whom  have  lately 
displayed  almost  as  much  activity  with  the  pen  as 
with  the  rod,  might  easily  do  worse  than  examine 
this  matter  with  a  little  care. 

Whether  John  Bright  was  a  real  fisherman,  or  a 
lover  of  solitude  who  sought  it,  rod  in  hand,  by  the 
banks  of  pleasant  streams,  he  was  a  great  Englishman 
whose  speeches  and  addresses  will  be  read,  so  long 
as  the   English    language    lasts,   for  edification,   for 

amusement,  and  for  reproof. 

A.  B. 

August  12,  1910. 

^  Public  Addresses,  p.  410. 


XXV 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface vii 

I.  Introductory i 

II.  Early  Days i8 

III.  Anti-Corn  Law  Agitation 28 

IV.  Ireland — Part  I.  English  Policy          ....  50 
V.    Ireland — Part  II.  Home  Rule 77 

VI.    The  Crimean  War 93 

VII.    India .        .113 

VIII.    The  American  Civil  War 137 

IX.    Canada 161 

X.    Parliamentary  Reform 171 

XI.    The  House  of  Lords 201 

XII.    Personal  Traits  and  Characteristics  ....  210 

XIII.    Last  Days 255 

Index 265 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


Portrait  of  the  Right  Hon.  John  Bright      ,        .       Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph  by  Elliott  &  Fry. 

Portrait  of  the  Right  Hon.  John  Bright      .        .    To  face  p.  158 

From  a  photograph  by  Oglesby,  Llandudno. 


Facsimile    of    a    Letter    from    the    Right   Hon. 

John  Bright  to  the  Author ,,      ,,        10 

Facsimile    of   a    Letter    from    the    Right    Hon. 

W.  E.  Gladstone  to  the  Author  .        .        .        .        ,,      „       90 

Facsimile  of    Notes    for    a    Speech    in    Bright's 

handwriting ,      ,,     248 


JOHN     BRIGHT 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Why  should  I  write  a  monograph  on  John  Bright  ? 
What  is  there  in  common  between  the  EngUsh  Puritan 
statesman  and  an  Irish  CathoHc  NationaHst  ?  Had 
a  stranger  entered  my  father's  house  in  the  West  of 
Ireland  forty  years  ago,  the  first  object  which  would 
have  met  his  eye  was  a  bust  of  John  Bright.  Why 
was  it  there  ?  Because  alone  among  leading  English 
statesmen,  at  that  time,  Bright  fearlessly  identified 
himself  with  the  Irish  popular  cause.  His  speeches 
were  a  revelation  to  me.  They  breathed,  one  might 
almost  say,  a  spirit  of  revolt  against  English  injustice 
in  Ireland,  and  defiantly  demanded  that  the  wrongs 
of  the  people  should  be  redressed.  In  1866  he  spoke 
at  a  banquet  in  Dublin  given,  in  his  honour,  by  the 
Irish  popular  party.  His  speech  produced  a  great 
impression,  and  many  passages  in  it  have  often  been 
quoted  since.  Only  twelve  months  had  elapsed  since 
the  Fenian  State  trials  had  taken  place;  and 
the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  still  suspended.  Bright 
dealt  sympathetically,  courageously,  with  the  situation. 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

His  remarks  were  not  much  relished  in  England,  but 
they  struck  a  responsive  chord  in  the  hearts  of  the 
Irish  people.     He  said  : 

It  is  a  country  [Ireland]  where  there  has  been, 
for  generations  past,  a  general  sense  of  wrong,  out  of 
which  has  grown  a  state  of  chronic  insurrection  ;  and 
at  this  very  moment  when  I  speak,  the  general  safe- 
guard of  constitutional  liberty  is  withdrawn,  and  we 
meet  in  this  hall,  and  I  speak  here  to-night,  rather 
by  the  forbearance  and  permission  of  the  Irish  executive 
than  under  the  protection  of  the  common  safeguards 
of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people  of  the  United 
Kingdom. 

I  venture  to  say  that  this  is  a  miserable  and  a 
humiliating  picture  to  draw  of  this  country.  Bear 
in  mind  that  I  am  not  speaking  of  Poland  suffering 
under  the  conquest  of  Russia.  ...  I  am  not  speaking 
about  Hungary,  or  of  Venice  as  she  was  under  the  rule 
of  Austria,  or  of  the  Greeks  under  the  dominion  of  the 
Turk,  but  I  am  speaking  of  Ireland — part  of  the 
United  Kingdom — part  of  that  which  boasts  itself 
to  be  the  most  civilised  and  the  most  Christian  nation 
in  the  world. 

The  following  passage  has  never  been  forgotten : 

You  will  recollect  that  when  the  ancient  Hebrew 
prophet  prayed  in  his  captivitj^  he  prayed  with  his 
window  opened  towards  Jerusalem.  You  know  that 
the  followers  of  Mahommed,  when  they  pray,  turn 
their  faces  towards  Mecca.  When  the  Irish  peasant 
asks  for  food,  and  freedom,  and  blessing,  his  eye 
follows  the  setting  sun  ;  the  aspirations  of  his  heart 
reach  beyond  the  wide  Atlantic,  and  in  spirit  he  grasps 
hands  with  the  great  Republic  of  the  West. 

In  1865   Mr.   Gladstone  had  said  that  the  Irish 

2 


INTRODUCTORY 

Church  Question  was  not  within  the  range  of  practical 
pohtics.  This  is  how  Bright  dealt  with  the  subject  in 
1866: 

But  some  others  say  that  there  is  no  ground  of 
complaint,  because  the  laws  and  institutions  of 
Ireland  are,  in  the  main,  the  same  as  the  laws  and 
institutions  of  England  and  Scotland.  They  say, 
for  example,  that  if  there  be  an  Established  Church  in 
Ireland,  there  is  one  in  England  and  one  in  Scotland, 
and  that  Nonconformists  are  very  numerous  both  in 
England  and  in  Scotland  ;  but  they  seem  to  forget 
this  fact,  that  the  Church  in  England  or  the  Church  in 
Scotland  is  not  in  any  sense  a  foreign  Church — that 
it  has  not  been  imposed  in  past  times,  and  is  not 
maintained  by  force — that  it  is  not  in  any  degree  the 
symbol  of  conquest,  that  it  is  not  the  Church  of  a 
small  minority,  absorbing  the  ecclesiastical  revenues 
and  endowments  of  a  whole  kingdom  ;  and  they  omit 
to  remember  or  to  acknowledge  that  if  any  Govern- 
ment attempted  to  plant  by  force  the  Episcopal  Church 
in  Scotland  or  the  Catholic  Church  in  England,  the 
disorders  and  discontent  which  have  prevailed  in 
Ireland  would  be  witnessed  with  tenfold  intensity  and 
violence  in  Great  Britain. 

On  the  Land  Question,  as  on  the  Church  Question, 
he  went  to  the  root  of  the  matter.     He  said  : 

And  these  persons  whom  I  am  describing  also  say 
that  the  landlords  in  Ireland  are  the  same  as  the 
landlords  in  England.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  that 
the  landlords  in  England  are  bad  enough,  and  that 
but  for  the  outlet  of  the  population  afforded  by  our 
extraordinary  manufacturing  industry,  the  condition 
of  England  would  in  all  probability  become  quite 
as  bad  as  the  condition  of  Ireland  has  been  ;    but 

O  B    2 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

if  the  countries  differ  with  regard  to  land  and  the 
management  of  it  in  their  customs,  may  it  not  be 
reasonable  that  they  should  also  differ  in  their  laws  ? 

In  Ireland  the  landowner  is  the  creature  of  conquest, 
-—not  of  conquest  of  eight  hundred  years  ago,  but  of 
conquest  completed  only  two  hundred  years  ago  ;  and 
it  may  be  well  for  us  to  remember,  and  for  all  English- 
men to  remember,  that  succeeding  that  transfer  of 
the  land  to  the  new-comers  from  Great  Britain,  there 
followed  a  system  of  laws,  known  by  the  name  of  tne 
Penal  Code,  of  the  most  ingenious  cruelty,  and  such  as, 
I  believe,  has  never  in  modern  times  been  inflicted  on 
any  Christian  people.  Unhappily,  on  this  account,  the 
wound  which  was  opened  by  the  conquest  has  never 
been  permitted  to  be  closed,  and  thus  we  have  had 
landowners  in  Ireland  of  a  different  race,  of  a  different 
religion,  and  of  different  ideas  from  the  great  bulk  of 
the  people,  and  there  has  been  a  constant  and  bitter 
war  between  the  owners  and  occupiers  of  the  soil.  .  .  . 

But  Ireland  has  been  more  than  this ;  it  has  been  a 
land  of  evictions— a  word  which,  I  suspect,  is  scarcely 
known  in  any  other  civilised  country.  It  is  a  country 
from  which  thousands  of  families  have  been  driven 
by  the  will  of  the  landowners  and  the  power  of  the  law. 

In  1868  the  first  edition  of  Bright's  Speeches, 
edited  by  Professor  Thorold  Rogers,  was  published.  I 
read  the  book  with  avidity.  In  fact,  it  became  my  con- 
stant companion.  I  first  came  to  London  in  1869.  The 
one  English  celebrity  whom  I  felt  most  anxious  to  see 
was  John  Bright.  At  the  time  the  name  of  Gladstone 
was  in  every  man's  mouth,  especially  in  every  Irish- 
man's mouth,  for  he  had  come  into  office  in  1868 
pledged  to  disestablish  the  English  Church  in  Ireland. 
But  he  held  a  secondary  place  in  my  thoughts.  Bright 
held  the  first  place,  because,  living  in  the  midst  of  a  hostile 

4 


INTRODUCTORY 

population,  he  had,  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
fought  the  Irish  cause  almost  single-handed.  Glad- 
stone had  only  just  taken  it  up,  and  taken  it  up 
under  the  pressure  of  a  great  Irish  revolutionary 
organisation — the  Fenian  Society.  Bright  had  needed 
no  such  pressure  to  persuade  him  to  demand  justice 
for  the  Irish  people. 

On  March  23,  1869 — the  night  of  the  division  on 
the  Church  Bill — I  paid  my  first  visit  to  the  House 
of  Commons.  I  was  taken  into  the  lobby  by  Sir 
Coleman  O'Loghlen,  then  member  for  the  County  Clare. 
We  stood  at  the  top  of  the  passage  leading  to  the 
cloak-room  and  saw  the  members  as  they  came  up  to 
enter  the  House.  Gladstone  walked  briskly  by. 
'  There  is  Gladstone,'  said  O'Loghlen;  and  the  Prime 
Minister,  hearing  his  name,  turned  quickly  round, 
waved  his  hand  to  O'Loghlen,  and  then  passed  into  the 
House,  his  face  beaming  with  the  joyful  anticipation 
of  coming  victory.  I  waited  for  some  time  longer  at 
the  top  of  the  passage  leading  to  the  cloak-room  in  the 
hope  of  seeing  Bright,  but  he  did  not  come.  I  then 
wandered  about  the  lobby  for  some  hours.  At  length 
my  chance  came,  and  about  11  or  12  o'clock  I  got 
into  what  was  then  called  the  Speaker's  Gallery.  The 
House  was  packed  (as  the  saying  is)  from  floor  to 
ceiling.  The  galleries  were  thronged.  There  seemed 
to  be  scarcely  standing  room.  It  was  an  animated  and 
an  exciting  scene.  In  front  of  the  despatch-box  at  the 
end  of  the  table,  on  the  Speaker's  left,  a  member 
stood,  delivering  a  rattling  speech.  Then  there  were 
cheers  and  counter-cheers.  *  That 's  Gathorne  Hardy,' 
I  was  told.     It  did  not  take  me  long  to  discover  that 

5 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

he  was  attacking  the  Bill.  By  his  side  sat  one  whose 
remarkable  and  curious  face  at  once  fixed  my  attention. 
Indeed,  while  I  listened  to  Hardy  I  looked  at  him.  His 
head  rested  against  the  top  of  the  bench,  his  eyes  were 
closed.  He  seemed  to  be  asleep.  Something  attracted 
his  attention  ;  he  woke  up,  fixed  a  large  eyeglass  in 
his  right  eye,  holding  it  the  while  between  the  thumb 
and  forefinger,  looked  steadfastly  for  a  second  in  a 
particular  direction,  then  removed  the  glass,  leant  back 
on  the  seat,  and  apparently  fell  asleep  again.  '  That 's 
Disraeli,'  some  one  said.  Opposite  to  him  sat 
Gladstone,  whom  of  course  I  quickly  recognised  again. 
He  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  most  restless  man  I  had 
ever  seen.  He  did  not  sit  still  for  a  minute.  At  one 
moment  he  placed  the  right  foot  on  the  left  knee,  and 
thqn  in  an  instant  reversed  the  position,  placing  the  left 
foot  on  the  right  knee.  He  put  his  head  back  on  the 
seat,  not,  however,  to  fall  asleep,  like  his  great  rival, 
but  to  lean  forward  immediately  afterwards  to  take  a 
note.  He  spoke  to  his  companion  on  the  right  and 
to  his  companion  on  the  left.  He  rested  not  for  an 
instant,  and  I  expected  every  moment  that  he  would 
spring  to  his  feet  to  interrupt  Hardy.  But  he  did 
not  do  that.  Hardy  rattled  away,  and  Gladstone 
chafed  under  restraint  until  his  time  came.  Im- 
mediately on  the  left  of  Gladstone,  so  far  as  I  can  now 
recall,  was  John  Bright.  His  splendid  leonine  head 
was,  I  thought,  the  noblest  object  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  night.  He  was  stately  and  dignified. 
He  sat  upright  and  looked  straight  in  front  of  him. 
The  lines  of  the  mouth  were  drawn  down,  and  the 
expression  was  earnest,  defiant,  severe,  with  a  touch  of 

6 


INTRODUCTORY 

contempt  and  scorn,  when  Tory  cheers  greeted  the 
belhgerent  periods  of  the  fiery  Hardy.  During  Hardy's 
speech  Bright  looked,  in  the  main,  unconcerned.  Some- 
times the  arms  were  folded,  sometimes  the  elbow  of 
the  right  arm  rested  in  the  palm  of  the  left  hand 
and  the  uplifted  fingers  stroked  the  chin.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone turned  to  him  now  and  then,  but  without,  so 
far  as  I  could  see,  eliciting  much  response.  His 
attitude  was  upon  the  whole  decidedly  impassive. 
He  had  spoken  on  March  20,  and  the  speech  has 
generally  been  accounted  one  of  his  finest  efforts ; 
but  I  had  not  the  good  luck  to  hear  it.  I  may,  how- 
ever, by  way  of  compensation  for  this  loss,  consider 
myself  fortunate  in  having  heard  Gladstone's  reply 
to  Hardy  on  this  memorable  night.  When  Hardy 
sat  down,  Gladstone  sprang  to  his  feet,  and  the  cheers 
which  greeted  the  rising  of  the  Prime  Minister  mingled 
with  those  which  applauded  the  termination  of  Hardy's 
oration.  Gladstone  clutched  the  sides  of  the  despatch- 
box  with  both  hands,  and  so  stood,  while  cheers 
and  counter-cheers  rang  through  the  House.  Some- 
times he  stepped  back  from  the  despatch-box  as  if  to 
begin  his  speech,  but  then  the  cheers  grew  louder  than 
ever,  and  he  resumed  his  former  attitude.  At  length 
the  cheers  died  gradually  away,  and  Gladstone  began 
in  words,  and  with  voice  and  gesture,  which  I  shall 
never  forget.  Hardy  had  said  hard  things  of  Ireland, 
and  I  wished  to  see  this  Tory  enemy  annihilated,  but 
I  never  dreamt  that  the  work  of  destruction  would  be  so 
rapid  and  complete.  In  six  sentences.  Hardy  was  laid 
low.  So  I  thought ;  and  so,  clearly,  the  Liberals 
thought,  by  the  extraordinary  burst  of  cheering  which 

7 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

greeted  the  last  of  these  sentences.  The  Tories  were 
perturbed  and  cried — '  Oh !  Oh ! '  Hardy  looked  angry 
and  discomposed.  Gladstone  began  in  sonorous  tones, 
accentuating  the  words  '  remarkable  and  deplorable  ' 
with  wonderful  effect,  looking  at  his  own  followers 
below  the  gangway  the  while : 

Mr.  Speaker — I  think.  Sir,  that  both  sides  of  the 
House  must  be  agreed  at  least  in  this — that  the  right 
hon.  gentleman  who  has  just  sat  down  has  drawn 
a  picture  of  the  state  of  Ireland  which  is  equally 
remarkable  and  deplorable. 

He  went  on,  assuming  a  narrative  tone,  and  wheeling 
slightly  round  so  as  to  face  the  men  on  the  back 
benches  above  the  gangway: 

The  right  hon.  gentleman's  picture  consists  of 
two  parts.  On  the  one  side  he  looks  at  the  system 
of  law,  government,  and  institutions  in  Ireland,  and 
there  all  is  well.  On  the  other  hand  he  looks  at  the 
people  of  Ireland — at  the  religion  of  the  people  of  Ire- 
land, at  the  relations  between  the  people  of  Ireland 
and  the  ministers  of  their  religion— and  there,  un- 
fortunately, all  is  ill. 

Next  with  a  rapid  change  of  voice,  and  grave  and 
solemn  expression,  he  continued  : 

Mr.  Burke  said  in  one  of  his  memorable  composi- 
tions that  he  did  not  know  how  to  bring  an  indictment 
against  a  nation. 

Pausing  for  a  moment  he  wheeled  round  again, 
faced  the  front  Tory  Bench,  struck  the  despatch-box 
lightly  with  his  hand,  waved  the  hand  towards  Hardy, 

8 


INTRODUCTORY 

while,  with  concentrated  energy,  and  in  voice  which 
rang  through  the  chamber,  he  broke  forth  : 

For  bringing  an  indictment  against  a  nation 
commend  me  to  the  right  hon.  gentleman. 

The  Liberals  cheered  again  and  again,  and  the 
applause  lasted  for  several  minutes.  Gladstone  tried 
impatiently  to  get  on,  but  in  vain.  There  he  stood 
at  the  despatch-box,  his  face  glowing  with  animation 
and  triumph.  The  cold  page  of  Hansard  can  give  no 
idea  of  the  effect  of  these  six  sentences  delivered  in 
Gladstone's  superb  style.  Indeed,  the  delivery  was  half 
the  battle— and  the  battle  went  ill  for  Hardy.  At  the 
conclusion  of  Gladstone's  speech  the  House  divided  on 
the  second  reading,  which  was  carried  amid  tumultuous 
applause  by  a  majority  of  368  against  250  votes. 

After  this  night  I  did  not  see  Bright  again  until 
about  1876,  and  I  did  not  meet  him  to  speak  to  until 
some  years  later.  In  1880  I  published  a  little  pamphlet 
entitled  '  The  Irish  Tand  Question  and  English  Public 
Opinion.'  I  sent  him  a  copy.  He  wrote  to  me  in 
ackowledgment : 

One  Ash,  Rochdale :  Jan.  g,  80. 

[Private.] 

Dear  Sir, — I  thank  you  for  sending  me  your 
pamphlet.  It  is  very  good,  and  must  be  useful  where- 
soever it  is  circulated  and  read. 

On  this  question  of  the  Land,  the  difficulty  would 
not  be  great.  All  might  be  done  which  is  not  of  a 
revolutionary  character,  and  the  present  time  seems 
favourable  for  such  changes  as  are  possible  without 
violence  and  by  consent  of  the  Imperial  Parliament. 

9 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

I  shall  probably  take  some  early  opportunity  of 
discussing  the  Irish  Question,  which  is  in  reality  the 
Irish  Land  Question. 

I  am,  yours  sincerely, 

John  Bright. 

R.  Barry  O'Brien,  Esq., 

Temple,  London. 

In  1880  I  wrote  a  book  entitled  '  The  Parliamentary 
History  of  the  Irish  Land  Question.'  According  to 
my  wont  I  sent  a  copy  to  Bright,  who  replied  : 

Reform  Club,  Pall  Mall,  S.W. :  Nov.  10,  80. 

Dear  Sir, — I  thank  you  for  the  gift  of  your  little 
book.  I  have  read  it  through  carefully,  and  have 
found  it  very  interesting.  I  wish  all  the  members  of 
Parliament  could  read  it.  I  mean  the  members  of  both 
Houses. 

I  am,  truly  yours, 

John  Bright. 

R.  Barry  O'Brien,  Esq., 

The  Temple. 

On  November  i6,  at  a  great  meeting  at  Birmingham, 
he  said  : 

...  I  have  been  reading  within  the  last  week  a  very 
interesting  httle  volume  written  by  Mr.  Barry  O'Brien. 
I  saw  in  the  papers  to-day  or  yesterday  that  there  is  a 
letter  pubhshed  from  Mr.  Gladstone  in  which  he  writes 
to  Mr.  O'Brien  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  his  little 
volume.  It  is  a  volume  that  makes  you  absolutely 
miserable  to  read.  Not  that  there  is  anything  shocking 
in  it — no  catastrophe,  no  assassination,  or  conspiracies 
of  bloodshed.  That  is  not  it.  It  details  what  has  been 
done  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament  from  the  year  1829 
to  the  year  1869,  the  year  before  the  passing  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  Irish  Land  Act,  and  for  those  forty  years 
he  gives  you  an  account  of  the  efforts  which  were  made 

10 


ONE    ASH, 

ROCHDALE 


hi:  1/  .  f3 

Aa^    li^-    ^^     U.ucA^    h^     ^^A 


London  :  Pobusukd  bt  Smith,  Bij>xr,  A  Oo^  U  Watirloo  Placb,5.W: 


I  si 
discussj 
Irish  L 


R.  Baf 

In  I 
History 
my  won 

Dea 

book, 
found  it 
Parliam 
Houses. 

R.  Barr 

OnN 
he  said  : 

.  .  .  ] 

interesth 
I  saw  in 
letter  pu 
to  Mr.  O 
volume, 
miserable 
in  it—no 
of  bloods) 
done  in  b 
to  the  ye 
Gladstone 
he  gives  y 


•g    H^C^    Hx^Cl    U^^      7n^   ^^Ati^^^^ 

r  A/*A*   • 


INTRODUCTORY 

by  some  honest  men  to  convince  the  ParHament  of 
England  that  some  better  and  wiser  legislation  should 
be  afforded  to  meet  the  intolerable  and  growing 
sufferings  of  Ireland,  and  he  shows  how  all  these 
appeals  to  Parliament  were  constantly  rejected. 

On  the  publication  of  '  Fifty  Years  of  Concessions  to 
Ireland'  in  1883,  I  received  the  following  letter: 

One  Ash,  Rochdale:  Oct.  4,  83. 

Dear  Sir, — The  handsome  volume  you  have  sent 
me  reached  me  last  evening.  I  occupied  a  portion  of 
the  evening  in  reading  it.  I  am  sure  I  shall  find  much 
valuable  matter  in  its  pages,  and  I  wish  it  could  be 
read  extensively  in  England  and  in  Ireland. 

Ireland  needs  to  be  informed  as  well  and  as  much  as 
England,  but  whilst  England  is  willing  to  learn  and  is 
now  well  disposed,  a  large,  portion  of  Ireland  is  not 
willing  to  learn,  and  has  put  itself  into  the  hands  of 
men  whose  purpose  is  that  it  shall  only  learn  what  is 
hostile  to  England  and  as  I  think  most  injurious  to  itself. 

As  to  the  future,  I  do  not  take  so  gloomy  a  view 
as  many  speakers  and  writers  do.  I  believe  in  just 
measures  and  in  their  effect,  and  in  time  and  patience, 
and  I  am  ready  to  hope  and  even  to  believe  that 
within  a  reasonable  period  we  shall  see  a  change  for 
the  better  in  Irish  aHairs. 

If  men  will  read  your  history  of  the  fifty  years,  they 
will  know  more  of  Ireland,  and  may  make  more  allow- 
ance for  the  present  unhappy  state  of  the  relations 
between  her  and  the  more  powerful  Island. 

I  thank  you  for  your  kindness  in  sending  me  your 
Book.  I  hope  it  may  be  extensively  read,  and  ex- 
tensively useful. 

I  am,  very  truly  yours, 

John  Bright. 

R.  Barry  O'Brien,  Esq., 

4  New  Court,  Carey  Street,  London. 

II 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

It  was  in  1884  that  I  first  met  Bright.  I  wanted 
to  examine  some  papers  at  the  Record  Office,  and 
thought  that  I  would  seek  his  help  to  obtain  the 
necessary  permission  from  the  Secretary  of  State 
I  wrote,  asking  for  an  appointment.  He  replied  in 
the  affirmative,  and  one  day  in  March  I  called  on 
him  at  his  well-known  lodgings,  132  Piccadilly. 
I  found  him  sitting  in  his  dressing-gown  at  a  table 
in  a  large  room  facing  the  Green  Park.  There  was 
a  book  before  him — Plowden's  '  History  of  Ireland/ 
As  I  entered  he  rose.  I  advanced  ;  he  touched  my 
hand  coldly,  and  said,  '  Sit  down.'  I  drew  a  chair  to 
the  table,  and  sat  beside  him  and  explained  my 
business.  He  said,  '  I  do  not  see  why  you  should  not 
be  allowed  to  see  these  papers.  I  think  that  they 
should  be  thrown  open  to  everyone.  The  people 
ought  to  know  what  is  going  on.'  He  added,  '  I  shall 
speak  to  the  Home  Secretary  about  you ' — a  pause — '  if 
I  think  of  it.'  I  thought  this  proviso,  '  if  I  think  of  it,' 
characteristic.  I  had  always  been  told  that  Quakers 
were  very  precise  in  their  statements,  lest  they  should 
say  what  was  not  accurate,  and  very  particular  in  their 
promises,  lest  the  promises  might  not  be  kept.  Bright 
then,  placing  his  hand  on  the  book,  said  : 

They  say  I  have  lost  all  interest  in  Ireland  since 
I  voted  for  coercion,  as  they  call  it ;  still,  I  have  been 
reading  this  book  all  the  morning.  The  history  of 
Ireland  has  always  interested  me. 

During  our  conversation  Bright  showed  no  bitter- 
ness in  talking  about  Irish  affairs.  On  the  contrary, 
he  seemed  to  regret  the  fact  that  he  was  no  longer, 

12 


INTRODUCTORY 

as  in  former  days,  in  touch  with  the  Irish  popular 
representatives.  He  dwelt  on  the  *  violence '  of  the 
'  Land  League/  I  said,  '  Nothing  has  been  done  for 
Ireland  without  violence/  He  said,  *  Yes ;  do  not 
suppose  that  I  object  to  violence.  I  do  not,  if  it 
rests  on  a  moral  basis.'  I  said,  '  The  claims  of  the 
Irish  tenants  rest  on  a  moral  basis.'  He  replied, 
*  Certainly,  but  the  acts  of  the  League  are  not  moral. 
If  they  were,  I  should  subscribe  to  its  funds  myself.' 

He  spoke  of  the  Irish  World,  and  said  suddenly, 
'  Why,  that  fellow  Ford  sends  me  his  paper  every 
week.     Would  you  like  to  see  a  copy  of  it  ?  ' 

I  said,  '  Yes.'  He  rose,  went  to  a  drawer,  took  out 
a  copy  of  the  Irish  World,  and  spread  it  out  over 
Plowden's  '  History  of  Ireland.' 

'  There  it  is,'  he  said  with  a  smile,  '  and  I  read  it 
regularly.' 

I  reminded  him  that  he  had  entered  Parliament  in 
1843,  that  in  that  very  year  the  Devon  Commission  was 
appointed,  that  it  reported  in  1845,  that  he  had  read  the 
report  and  evidence  of  the  Commission,  and  that  he 
had  constantly  advocated  the  cause  of  land  reform  in 
Ireland,  but  that  nothing  had  been  done  by  Parliament, 
and  that  he  had  spoken  to  his  fellow-countrymen  on 
the  Irish  Land  Question  in  vain.  It  was  only,  I  said, 
under  the  pressure  of  the  Fenian  movement  that  the 
Land  Act  of  1870  was  passed,  and  the  State  Church 
disestablished.  '  Ah  !  '  he  said,  suddenly  turning 
to  the  Church  Question  with  a  vehemence  which 
astonished  me,  as  the  question  had  long  been  a  dead 
issue,  '  the  Irish  State  Church  was  a  great  scandal. 
It  was  the  most  unjust  and  scandalous  institution 

13 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

ever  established  in  any  country/  Then  he  made 
a  Httle  speech  of  eight  or  ten  minutes,  summing  up  the 
case  against  the  Church  with  as  much  earnestness 
and  eloquence  as  if  the  subject  was  still  under  public 
consideration,  '  Well/  he  said  after  some  further  talk, 
'  I  should  like  to  visit  Ireland  again ;  I  should  like  to 
make  a  speech  to  the  Irish  people  again/  I  said, '  Why 
don't  you  ?  '  He  replied,  *  They  would  not  listen 
to  me/  I  said,  '  I  think  that  you  are  mistaken,  they 
would  listen  to  you.  They  are  a  very  fair-minded 
people,  and  would  listen  gladly  to  you.  Remember 
Mr.  Forster's  speech  at  TuUamore.  They  listened  to 
him  with  great  patience,  yet  he  had  given  them  cause 
not  to  listen  to  him.'  '  That  is  quite  true,'  said  Bright ; 
'  they  did  give  Forster  a  fair  hearing.  But  I  am  too 
old  to  make  speeches  now.'  Then,  apropos  of  nothing, 
he  said,  '  I  am  dining  with  Mrs.  Drummond  to-night 
— the  widow  of  Thomas  Drummond,  about  whom 
you  speak  so  well  in  your  book.'  This  was  an  agree- 
able surprise  to  me,  for  I  had  no  idea  that  any 
members  of  Drummond's  family  were  alive,  and  said 
so.  Bright  said,  '  Yes,  his  widow  and  two  daughters 
are  living.' 

I  had  heard  that  Bright  was  an  unapproachable 
man  ;  that  he  was  intolerant  of  differences  of  opinion, 
impatient  of  contradiction  and  argument ;  and  that  he 
generally  called  the  people  who  did  not  agree  with 
him  '  fools.'  I  must  say  that  my  recollection  of  this 
my  first  interview  with  him  is  in  every  way  pleasant. 
He  was  agreeable  and  homely,  listened  to  all  I 
had  to  say  and  showed  a  disposition  to  meet  every 
point    fully    and    fairly.      The    three    most    remark- 

14 


INTRODUCTORY 

able  politicians  whom  I  have  met  were  Parnell, 
Gladstone,  and  Bright.  If  I  may,  I  should  describe  the 
conversational  characteristics  of  each  thus  :  Parnell 
listened  and  seldom  talked,  Gladstone  talked  and 
seldom  listened,  Bright  talked  and  listened. 

A  few  days  after  our  interview  I  received  the 
following  letter  from  him  : 

132  Piccadilly:  March  14,  1884. 

Dear  Sir, — I  was  dining  on  Wednesday  with  Mrs. 
Drummond,  the  widow  of  Mr.  Drummond  the 
Secretary  in  Dublin  of  whom  you  have  spoken  highly 
in  your  book. 

If  you  can  call  upon  Mrs.  Drummond,  she  will  be 
glad  to  see  you.  I  think  a  little  conversation  with 
you  would  please  her.  She  is  a  lady  of  much  intelli- 
gence and  right  principles,  and  has  much  sympathy 
with  your  country.  I  spoke  to  her  of  your  book, 
and  of  your  desire  to  be  of  service  to  her  country  and 
to  your  own. 

Her  address  is  i8  Hyde  Park  Gardens, 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

John  Bright. 

R.  Barry  O'Brien,  Esq., 

4  New  Court,  Carey  Street. 

From  this  time  until  his  death  the  relations  were 
pleasant  between  myself  and  the  great  EngHsh 
Tribune. 

When  he  fell  seriously  ill  in  1888,  I  wrote  to 
him  expressing  my  solicitude  for  his  recovery.  I  re- 
ceived a  cordial  reply  from  a  member  of  his  family, 
for  he  was  himself  then  too  ill  to  write.  A  few  days 
afterwards  he  passed  away.  In  the  House  of  Commons, 
on   March   29,  1889,  it  fell  to  the  lot  of  Mr.  Justin 

15 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

McCarthy  to  speak  for  Ireland  in  memory  of  one  who, 
for  the  best  part  of  his  hf e,  had  courageously  advocated 
the  cause  of  justice  to  the  Irish  people.  Mr.  McCarthy 
said: 

Any  words  of  mine  must  come  like  an  anti-climax 
after  the  noble  eloquence  of  the  right  hon.  gentleman 
the  member  for  Mid-Lothian.  But  my  colleagues 
and  I  feel  that  if  on  this  occasion  no  voice  were  to  be 
raised  from  the  benches  on  which  we  sit,  our  silence 
might  possibly  be  misconstrued,  or  at  least  be  misunder- 
stood. It  is  at  least  possible  that  if  we  remained 
silent  it  might  be  thought  that  because;  of  late  years 
we  had  not  Mr.  Bright's  sympathy  and  support  for 
our  national  cause,  we  were  unwilling  to  associate 
ourselves  in  the  tribute  all  other  parties  are  paying 
to  his  career  and  to  his  memory.  Mr.  Speaker,  the 
Irish  Party  is  not  so  wanting  in  generosity,  and  the 
memory  of  the  Irish  people  is  not  so  short.  We 
regret — we  deeply  regret — that  we  had  not  of  late 
years  the  unspeakable  advantage  of  Mr.  Bright's 
sympathy  and  support,  but  we  are  not  thinking  much 
of  that  just  now — we  are  not  desirous  of  thinking  of 
it.  In  our  ordinary  experience  of  life  we  often  find 
that  impressions  made  long  ago  remain  abiding  and 
imperishable,  while  the  events  which  occurred  the  day 
before  yesterday  are  already  forgotten.  So  we  feel, 
so  we  wish  to  feel,  for  the  great  public  and  private 
career  of  Mr.  Bright.  Our  memory  goes  back  to  the 
time  when  he  championed  our  Irish  cause  with  an 
eloquence  and  a  sincerity  never  surpassed  in  the  struggle 
for  any  great  purpose  whatever.  We  cannot  but 
remember  that  he  was  our  champion  and  our  advocate 
at  a  time  when  we  had  nothing  like  the  amount  of 
sympathy  and  support,  in  this  House  and  out  of  it, 
which,  thanks  alike  to  friends  and  enemies,  we  possess 
to-day.    We  remember,  too — we  must  remember — that 

i6 


INTRODUCTORY 

some  of  the  most  superb,  the  most  magnificent,  illustra- 
tions of  his  immortal  eloquence  were  given  to  champion 
the  cause  of  the  suffering  Irish  peasant,  and  to  awaken 
in  this  country  a  sympathy  with  the  Irish  cause. 
Bearing  in  mind  all  these  things,  and  others  I  will  not 
go  through,  we  feel  we  cannot  remain  silent  on  an 
occasion  like  the  present.  Remembering,  then,  what 
he  did  for  Ireland  in  days  gone  by,  and  with  the  full 
conviction,  alluded  to  by  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury, 
that  every  one  of  Mr.  Bright's  views  was  conscientious 
and  sincere,  we  desire  to  associate  ourselves  with  the 
tribute  paid  in  this  House  to  his  memory,  and  we  claim 
the  right  of  Ireland  to  lay  her  immortelle,  her  mourning 
wreath,  on  this  great  Enghshman's  grave. 


17 


CHAPTER  II 

EARLY  DAYS  ;  MEMBER  FOR  DURHAM 

Readers  of  biography  are,  as  a  rule,  impatient  of 
family  history.  They  Hke  the  biographer  to  come  at 
once  to  the  point.  Well,  in  the  case  of  John  Bright 
they  shall  be  gratified. 

The  Brights  were  of  Quaker  stock.  The  story  is  told 
how,  on  one  occasion,  Sydney  Smith,  while  looking 
critically  at  the  unfinished  portrait  of  a  celebrated 
Nonconformist  divine,  said  to  the  artist,  'Do  you 
not  think  that  you  could  throw  into  the  face  a 
stronger  expression  of  hostility  to  the  Established 
Church  ?  ' 

The  Brights  disliked  Established  Churches  every- 
where. An  ancestor  of  Bright,  John  Gratton,  left  the 
Established  Church  of  England  and  became  a  Friend, 
violated  the  Conventicle  Act  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II, 
and  was  imprisoned  for  over  five  years  in  Derby  gaol. 
He  was  released  by  James  II,  and  lived  until  1711. 
John  Bright  was  very  proud  of  John  Gratton,  because 
John  Gratton  had  suffered  for  the  faith  that  was  in 
him.^ 

^  *  I  was/  says  John  Gratton,  *  a  prisoner  for  the  Gospel's  sake,  about 
five  years  and  a  half  before  I  was  set  at  liberty  by  King  James  II. 

18 


EARLY  DAYS 

The  Bright  famil}^  seem  to  have  come  originally 
from  Wiltshire. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century 
Abraham  Bright  married  Martha  Jacobs,  and  migrated 
to  Coventry,  in  Warwickshire.  Their  great-grandson, 
Jacob  Bright,  was  born  at  Coventry  in  1775.  He 
became  the  apprentice  of  a  small  cotton  manufacturer, 
named  William  Holmes  (whose  daughter  he  ultimately 
married),  at  New  Mills,  Derbyshire. 

In  1802  two  of  Holmes's  sons  settled  in  Roch- 
dale, where  they  established  a  cotton  mill.  Jacob 
Bright  accompanied  them  and  became  their  book- 
keeper. 

In  1809  Jacob  took  an  old  mill  and  house,  called 
Greenbank,  on  Cronkeyshaw  Common,  near  Roch- 
dale. A  firm  of  agents  found  the  capital  and  Jacob 
managed  the  business.  This  partnership  lasted  until 
1823,  when  he  became  sole  owner  of  the  property.  He 
died  in  1851.  He  was  married  three  times,  but  had 
issue  only  by  his  second  wife,  Martha  Wood  (daughter  of 
a  tradesman  at  Bolton  le  Moors),  who  bore  him  eleven 
children.  John,  the  second  child,  who  was  bom  at 
Greenbank  in  181 1,  became  the  head  of  the  family  on 
the  decease  of  the  eldest  child,  William,  who  died  in 
1814. 

'  I  cannot,'  said  Bright,  in  the  Free  Trade  Hall, 
Manchester,  October  18,  1847,  '  boast  of  blood  and 
ancestry.     My  ancestry  were  people  who  followed  an 

As  also  many  hundreds  more  were ;    I  was  discharged  in  open  court, 
the  23rd  of  the  first  month,  1686.' — John  Gratton's  Journal. 

John  Gratton's  granddaughter  was,  I  understand,  the  grandmother 
of  Bright's  father. 

19  ^^ 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

honourable  industry — such  as  I  myself  should  have 
preferred  always  to  follow,  such  as  you  follow  now, 
and  such  as  your  forefathers  followed.  My  sympathies 
are  naturally  with  the  class  with  which  I  am  connected, 
and  I  would  infinitely  prefer  to  raise  the  class  of 
which  I  am  one,  than  by  any  means  whatever  to  creep 
above  it  or  out  of  it.' 

I  hope  that  this  brief  and  simple  narrative  of 
family  history  will  not  exhaust  the  patience  even  of 
the  most  restive  reader. 

Readers  of  biography  are  also,  I  think,  impatient  of 
the  story  of  '  early  days.'  They  think  that  the  bio- 
grapher tries  to  make  out  that  his  hero  was  a  prodigy 
from  start  to  finish.  Well,  as  a  boy  John  Bright  was 
no  prodigy.  He  was  a  handsome,  delicate  lad,  fond  of 
reading,  delighting  in  beautiful  scenery,  and  amusing 
himself  out  of  doors  by  walking,  fishing,  and  bird's- 
nesting.  He  was  sent  to  Nonconformist  schools  (where 
he  received  a  sound  English  education,  but  read  no 
classics)  at  Rochdale,  at  Ackworth  near  Pontefract,  at 
York,  and  at  Newton  near  Clitheroe.  At  the  age 
of  fifteen  he  left  school,  entered  his  father's  business, 
and  began  the  world. 

In  an  unfinished  MS.  autobiography.  Bright 
makes  the  following  reference  to  his  schooldays  at 
Rochdale : 

It  was  in  the  year  1820,  when  I  was  nearly  nine 
years  old,  that  I  first  went  to  a  regular  school.  This 
was  to  Townhead  School  for  boarders  and  day  scholars, 
which  was  kept  by  William  Littlewood,  then  a  very 
young  man  to  have  the  responsibility  of  conducting  a 
considerable    school.     His    father    had   but    recently 

20 


EARLY  t)AYS 

died,  and  the  son  succeeded  him.  He  hved  with  his 
mother,  Sarah  Littlewood,  of  whom  I  stood  in  much 
awe,  for  she  was  a  stately  lady.  My  mother  had  a 
great  regard  for  her.  Townhead  School  was  at  the  top 
of  Yorkshire  Street,  in  Rochdale,  at  the  distance  of 
half  a  mile  from  my  home.  I  walked  down  after  an 
early  breakfast,  came  home  to  dinner,  and  went  back 
to  school  for  the  afternoon.  I  can  well  remember,  as 
I  went  out  of  the  back  door  of  our  house  and  round 
to  the  front  to  go  out  of  the  little  garden  gate,  my 
dear  mother  would  often  meet  me  at  the  front  door 
with  a  piece  of  cake  for  me  to  eat  as  I  walked  down 
the  four  or  five  fields  through  which  I  passed  before 
reaching  Yorkshire  Street.  I  must  have  been  one  of 
the  youngest  and  smallest  boys  in  the  school,  and  it 
was  on  this  account  probably  that  I  was  sometimes 
sent  by  the  other  boys  into  the  parlour  to  ask  for  a 
holiday  for  myself  and  for  them.  The  master  was 
popular  with  the  boys,  for  he  was  kind  and  worthy  of 
our  good  opinion.  I  remember  that  he  often  took  his 
coffee  for  breakfast  at  a  small  table  whilst  the  lessons 
were  going  on,  and  when  he  had  finished  it  he  sometimes 
told  me  to  carry  the  small  tray  into  the  house,  and  I 
was  allowed  to  indulge  in  the  toast  which  was  left  on 
the  plate.  William  Littlewood  was  not  only  my  first 
schoolmaster,  but  he  was,  whilst  he  lived,  one  of  my 
best  and  kindest  friends,  and  not  infrequently,  in  after 
years,  I  have  spent  pleasant  evenings  at  his  house, 
with  his  wife  and  daughters  and  friends  who  were 
visiting  him.^ 

The  first  political  event  which  seems  to  have 
attracted  the  attention  of  Bright  was  the  Preston 
election  in  1830.     The  candidates  were  Lord  Stanley 

^  Quoted    in    An    Account    of    Townhead    School,    Rochdale,     by 
J.  Stothert  Littlewood. 

21 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

(afterwards  the  great  Lord  Derby)  and  '  orator  '  Hunt, 
There  was  a  man  named  Nuttall  in  the  employment 
of  the  Messrs.  Bright.  Nuttall  was  a  politician  and 
a  Radical.  He  took  a  keen  interest  in  the  Preston 
fight,  watched  the  proceedings  day  by  day,  and 
kept  young  Bright — whose  interest  in  the  contest  he 
aroused— well  posted  in  all  that  went  on.  There  was 
great  rejoicing  in  the  establishment  of  the  Messrs. 
Bright  when,  on  the  close  of  the  poll,  it  was  found  that 
Hunt  was  the  victor.  We  have  an  interesting  sketch 
of  Bright  in  1832  by  Mr.  Aldis,  a  noteworthy  Baptist 
minister.  Mr.  Aldis  attended  a  meeting  of  the  Bible 
Society  in  Rochdale,  where  young  Bright  spoke.  Mr. 
Aldis  met  him  for  the  first  time  at  a  friend's  house. 
He  says : 

Soon  a  slender,  modest  young  gentleman  came,  who 
surprised  me  by  his  intelligence  and  thought  fulness. 
I  took  his  arm  on  the  way  to  the  meeting,  and  I 
thought  he  seemed  nervous.  I  think  it  was  his  first 
public  speech,  at  all  events  in  such  connection.  It 
was  very  eloquent  and  powerful,  and  carried  away 
the  meeting,  but  it  was  elaborate  and  memorative.  On 
our  way  back,  as  I  congratulated  him,  he  said  that  such 
efforts  cost  him  too  dear,  and  asked  me  how  I  spoke  so 
easily.  I  then  took  the  full  advantage  of  my  seniority 
to  set  forth  my  notions,  which  I  need  not  repeat  here, 
except  this — that  in  his  case,  as  in  most,  I  thought  it 
would  be  best  not  to  burden  the  memory  too  much,  but 
having  carefully  prepared  and  committed  to  memory 
any  portions  when  special  effect  was  desired,  merely  to 
put  down  other  things  in  the  desired  order,  leaving 
the  wording  of  them  to  the  moment.  Years  rolled  away. 
I  had  entirely  forgotten  the  name  of  the  young  friend, 
when  the  Free  Trade  Bazaar  was  held  in  London.    One 

22 


EARLY  DAYS 

of  those  engaged  for  it — Mr.  Baker,  of  Stockport — 
calling  on  me,  asked  if  I  had  called  on  Mr.  Bright. 
I  said  I  had  not  been  able  to  attend  the  meetings, 
and  did  not  personally  know  him  at  all.  He  replied, 
'  You  must,  for  I  heard  him  say  that  you  gave  him 
his  first  lesson  in  public  speaking.'  I  went  to  a 
subsequent  meeting  and  recognised  the  young  friend 
of  1832. 

In  1833  Bright  went  abroad  for  the  first  time, 
visiting  Ostend,  Ghent,  Brussels,  Antwerp,  Cologne, 
Frankfort,  and  Mayence.  In  the  same  year  he  took 
a  prominent  part  in  founding  the  Rochdale  Literary 
and  Philosophical  Society,  where  he  delivered  an 
address  on  capital  punishment,  a  subject  in  which  he 
always  took  a  profound  interest.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  say  that  he  consistently  advocated  its  abolition. 
In  1835  the  most  important  event,  so  far,  in  Bright's 
life  happened.  He  met  Cobden.  He  tells  us  the 
story  himself. 

I  went  over  to  Manchester  to  ask  him  if  he 
would  be  kind  enough  to  come  to  Rochdale  and 
to  speak  at  an  education  meeting  which  was  about 
to  be  held  in  the  schoolroom  of  the  Baptist  Chapel 
in  West  Street  of  that  town.  I  found  him  in  his 
office  in  Mosley  Street.  I  introduced  myself  to  him. 
I  told  him  what  I  wanted.  His  countenance  Ht  up 
with  pleasure  to  find  that  there  were  others  who  were 
working  on  this  question,  and  he,  without  hesitation, 
agreed  to  come.  He  came,  and  he  spoke ;  and 
although  he  was  then  so  young  as  a  speaker,  yet 
the  qualities  of  his  speech  were  such  as  remained 
with  him  so  long  as  he  was  able  to  speak  at 
all — clearness,    logic,   a   conversational    eloquence,   a 

23 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

persuasiveness  which,  when  conjoined  with  the  absolute 
truth  there  was  in  his  eye  and  in  his  countenance, 
it  was  almost  impossible  to  resist. 

In  1836  Bright  went  abroad  again,  visiting  Lisbon, 
Gibraltar,  Malta,  Syria,  the  Pyrenees,  and  Athens. 

In  1837  there  was  a  great  meeting  at  Rochdale, 
summoned  to  condemn  Church  Establishments.  Bright 
was  called  on  to  support  the  resolution  of  the  day — 
'That  all  civil  establishments  of  religion  are  directly 
opposed  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity.'  It  is  interest- 
ing to  note  that  at  this  early  period  of  his  public  life 
he  was  mindful  of  the  anomalous  position  of  the 
English  State  Church  in  Ireland.  In  the  course  of 
his  speech  he  said  : 

In  unfortunate  Ireland  there  is  a  Church  established 
by  law,  countenanced  by  the  Government,  and  supported 
by  an  army  of  some  twenty-five  thousand  men,  wringing 
its  maintenance  from  an  almost  starving  population, 
seven-eighths  of  whom  entirely  disagree  with  it  in 
principles  and  in  doctrine.  When  I  hear  of  the  acts  of 
persecution  which  have  taken  place  in  Ireland,  I  can 
almost  blush  that  I  am  one  of  a  nation  whose  Govern- 
ment and  whose  Church,  established  by  law,  sanction 
such  unholy  deeds. 

Bright  hated  Church  Rates,  as  did  his  father  (who 
had  frequently  suffered  distraint  for  them)  before 
him.  All  Rochdale  hated  Church  Rates,  and  Bright 
attended  many  a  meeting  to  denounce  them.  In 
1840  he  delivered  what  was  perhaps  the  best  speech  he 
had  made  up  to  this  date  on  the  subject.  This  speech 
was  delivered  in  St.  Chad's  Churchyard,  Rochdale,  in 
the  presence  of  some  6000  people.      The  peroration 

24 


EARLY  DAYS 

has  the  ring  of  the  true  metal,  which  was  soon 
to  characterise  Bright 's  speeches  on  all  subjects. 
Pointing  to  the  old  parish  church  close  by,  he  said: 

Fellow-townsmen,  I  look  on  that  old  building — that 
venerable  building,  for  its  antiquity  gives  it  a  venerable 
air — with  a  feeling  of  pain.  I  behold  it  as  a  witness  of 
ages  gone  by,  as  one  of  the  numberless  monuments  of 
the  piety  and  zeal  of  our  ancestors,  as  a  connecting- 
link  between  this  and  former  ages.  I  could  look  on  it 
with  a  feeling  of  affection,  did  I  not  know  that  it  forms 
the  centre  of  that  source  of  discord  with  which  our 
neighbourhood  has  for  years  been  afflicted,  and  did  it 
not  seem  the  genial  bed  wherein  strife  and  bitter 
jarrings  were  perpetually  produced  to  spread  their 
baneful  influence  over  this  densely  peopled  parish  ! 
I  would  that  that  venerable  fabric  were  the  representa- 
tive of  a  really  reformed  Church — of  a  Church  separated 
from  the  foul  connexion  with  the  State — of  a  Church 
depending  upon  her  own  resources,  upon  the  zeal  of 
her  people,  upon  the  truthfulness  of  her  principles 
and  upon  the  blessings  of  her  spiritual  Head  !  Then 
would  the  Church  be  really  free  from  her  old  vices  ; 
then  would  she  run  a  career  of  brighter  and  still 
brightening  glory ;  then  would  she  unite  heart  and 
hand  with  her  sister  Churches  in  this  kingdom,  in 
the  great  and  glorious  work  of  evangelising  the  people 
of  this  great  empire,  and  of  every  clime  throughout  the 
world.  My  friends,  the  time  is  coming  when  a  State 
Church  will  be  unknown  in  England,  and  it  rests  with 
you  to  accelerate  or  retard  that  happy  consummation. 
I  call  upon  you  to  gird  yourselves  for  the  contest  which 
is  impending,  for  the  hour  of  conflict  is  approaching 
when  the  people  of  England  will  be  arbiters  of  their 
own  fate — when  they  will  have  to  choose  between  civil 
and  religious  liberty,  or  the  iron  hoof,  the  mental 
thraldom  of  a   hireling   State   priesthood.      Men    of 

25 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Rochdale,  do  your  duty  !  You  know  what  becomes  you  ! 
Maintain  the  great  principles  you  profess  to  hold  dear  ; 
unite  with  me  in  the  firm  resolve  that  under  no  possible 
circumstances  will  you  ever  pay  a  Church  Rate,  and, 
whatever  may  await  you,  prove  that  good  and  holy 
principles  can  nerve  the  heart ;  and  ultimately  our  cause, 
your  cause,  the  world's  cause,  shall  triumph  gloriously. 

In  1841  Bright's  life  was  clouded  by  a  great  sorrow. 
He  lost  his  young  and  devoted  wife  (Elizabeth  Priest- 
man,  daughter  of  Jonathan  and  Rachel  Priestman  of 
Newcastle-on-Tyne),  to  whom  he  had  been  married  in 
1839.  He  tells  us  in  pathetic  language  how  Cobden 
came  to  comfort  him,  and  what  happened  between 
them: 

At  that  time  I  was  at  Leamington,  and  on  the  day  when 
Mr.  Cobden  called  on  me — for  he  happened  to  be  there 
at  the  same  time  on  a  visit  to  some  relations — I  was 
in  the  depth  of  grief,  I  might  almost  say  of  despair, 
for  the  light  and  sunshine  of  my  house  had  been  extin- 
guished. All  that  was  left  on  earth  of  my  young  wife, 
except  the  memory  of  a  sainted  life  and  of  a  too  brief 
happiness,  was  lying  still  and  cold  in  the  chamber 
above  us.  Mr.  Cobden  called  on  me  as  my  friend,  and 
addressed  me,  as  you  might  suppose,  with  words  of 
condolence.  After  a  time  he  looked  up  and  said, 
'  There  are  thousands  of  homes  in  England  at  this 
moment  where  wives,  mothers,  and  children  are  dying 
of  hunger.  Now,  when  the  first  paroxysm  of  your 
grief  is  past,  I  would  advise  you  to  come  with  me,  and 
we  will  never  rest  until  the  Corn  Law  is  repealed  !  ' 

Two  years  later,  under  the  pressure  of  Cobden 
and  the  League,  he  consented  to  enter  Parliament 
in  the  cause  of  Free  Trade.     There  was  an  election 

26 


EARLY  DAYS 

for  the  city  of  Durham.  Lord  Duncannon  stood 
as  a  Protectionist.  Bright  opposed  him  as  an 
independent  Liberal  and  a  Free  Trader.  Duncannon 
won  ;  but  he  was  unseated  on  petition  for  bribery. 
There  was  another  election.  Mr.  Purvis  came  for- 
ward in  the  Tory  and  Protectionist  interest.  Bright 
stood  again.  Purvis  was  beaten,  and  Bright  became 
member  for  Durham. 


27 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

I  AM  not  going  to  retell  the  story  of  the  Anti-Corn  Law 
agitation.  It  is  as  old  as  the  hills.  Everybody  knows 
it.  At  the  end  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  import  duties 
were  placed  on  corn.  The  corn  of  the  foreigner  was 
kept  out  of  England,  but  the  value  of  the  home-grown 
article  was  greatly  enhanced.  Prices  went  up  and 
rents  went  up.  The  landlord  and,  to  a  certain  extent, 
the  farmer  were  benefited  by  the  Corn  Laws,  but  the 
consumer  had  to  pay  the  piper.  '  It  is  a  pantry 
question,'  said  Bright.  Quite  true.  The  question 
of  the  Corn  Law  was  a  question  of  the  dear  loaf  or 
the  cheap  loaf.  The  Corn  Law  made  the  loaf  dear. 
It  was  to  remove  this  tax  on  the  food  of  the  people 
that  John  Bright  and  Richard  Cobden  took  off  their 
coats.^ 


*  In  1815  the  Corn  Law  was  passed,  prohibiting  the  importation  of 
wheat,  except  under  a  heavy  duty,  until  the  price  of  home-grown 
reached  80s.  a  quarter.  In  1822  another  Act  was  passed  which  per- 
mitted the  importation  of  corn  when  the  price  of  wheat  was  70s.  a 
quarter.  In  1828  a  third  Act  was  passed,  which  provided  that  a  duty 
of  23s.  8^.  was  imposed  when  the  price  of  wheat  in  the  home  market 
was  64s.     There  were  certain  variations.     Thus,  when  wheat  was  at 

28 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

*This  House/  said  Bright,  'is  a  club  of  land- 
owners legislating  for  landowners.  The  corn  law  you 
cherish  is  a  law  to  make  a  scarcity  of  food  in  the  country 
that  your  own  rents  may  be  increased.  The  quarrel 
is  between  the  bread-eating  millions  and  the  few  who 
monopolise  the  soil.' 

I  shall  use  the  Anti-Corn  Law  agitation  as  I  shall 
use  every  other  subject — solely  for  the  purpose  of 
illustrating  the  character  of  Bright.  *  Bright  hated 
the  governing  classes  ;  that  is  the  key  to  his  character/ 
so  a  shrewd  observer  once  said  to  me.  But  this 
statement  needs  at  least  to  be  supplemented  by 
another:  Bright  loved  justice  and  freedom,  and  had 
faith  in  the  people.  Who  were  the  governing  classes 
in  England  when  Bright  entered  public  life  ?  Landlords 
and  parsons  ;  and  it  must  be  allowed  that  Bright  had 
not  much  affection  for  either.  He  thought  that 
somehow  they  represented  monopoly  and  injustice. 
Bishops,  particularly  the  bishops  of  an  Established 
Church,  were  his  pet  aversion.  Speaking  at  Manchester 
in  1847,  ^^^  referring  to  the  recent  creation  of  a 
bishopric  in  that  district,  he  said  that  he  regretted 
that  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  give  a  vote  in  opposition 
to  the  '  calamity  '  which  had  befallen  the  town.  He 
went  on  : 

My  right  hon.  colleague  [Mr.  Gibson]  says  that 
he  should  sleep  comfortably  if  no  more  bishops 
had  been  made;    my  slumbers  would  be  unbroken 

69s.  the  duty  was  i6s.  8d.,  and  when  the  home  price  rose  to  73s.,  then 
the  duty  fell  to  the  nominal  rate  of  is. 

[For  an  account  of  the  Com  Law,  and  the  Anti-Corn  Law,  agitation 
generally,  see  Morley's  Cobden.] 

29 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

if  the  bishops  that  are  made  were  to  be  unmade. 
I  never  yet  saw  any  good  that  the  bishops  did ;  I  have 
seen  the  multitudinous  mischiefs  that  the  bishops 
have  done.  I  beheve  that  hierarchies,  State-manu- 
factured clergy,  are  in  themselves  evils,  and  that 
the  time  will  come  when  they  will  be  no  more  known 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  than  some  of  those  great 
creatures,  of  which  we  have  remnants  left,  which 
lived  before  the  flood. 

Speaking  on  Lord  John  RusselFs  ridiculous 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  in  1851,  he  said,  and  the 
passage  is  eminently  characteristic : 

The  noble  lord  at  the  head  of  the  Government  said 
to-night  that  he  was  strongly  opposed  to  ecclesiastical 
influence  in  temporal  affairs.  Why,  if  we  walk  to  the 
other  House,  we  see  twenty-four  or  twenty-six  bishops, 
and  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  they  always  sit  behind 
the  Government.  When  a  Minister  crosses  the  House 
the  bishops  stay  where  they  are  ;  they  always  keep  on 
the  Government  side.  One  of  these  bishops,  or  rather  an 
archbishop,  has  an  income  of  £15,000  a-year.  I  heard 
the  noble  lord,  when  this  archbishop  was  appointed, 
state  that  an  arrangement  had  been  made  by  which 
the  salary  would  be  brought  down  from  its  hitherto 
unknown  and  fabulous  amount  to  this  £15,000  a-year  ; 
and  the  noble  lord  said,  with  a  coolness  I  thought 
inimitable,  that  he  hoped  this  would  be  quite  satis- 
factory. Not  only,  however,  here,  but  wherever  they 
travel,  these  bishops  and  archbishops  are  surrounded 
with  pomp  and  power.  A  bishop  was  sent  lately  to 
Jerusalem  ;  and  he  did  not  ti'avel  like  an  ordinary 
man — he  had  a  steam  frigate  to  himself,  called 
The  Devastation.  And  when  he  arrived  within  a 
stone's  throw,  no  doubt,  of  the  house  where  an  apostle 
lived,  in  the  house  of  Simon  the  tanner,  he  landed 
under  a  salute  of  twenty-one  guns. 

30 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

Bright  had  faith  in  the  people,  and  devoted 
himself  to  their  welfare. 

'  In  countries  not  far  off/  he  once  said,  'we  have 
seen  institutions  shaken  to  their  foundation  by  dire 
calamities.  We  have  seen  crowns  and  hierarchies  shaken 
to  the  dust ;  we  have  seen  ranks  and  orders  and  parties 
overthrown ;  but  there  was  one  party  which  survived  all 
this,  and  that  party  was  the  people.  Whatever  con- 
vulsion might  happen  in  this  country,  whatever  orders 
might  be  overthrown,  the  people  would  survive.' 

The  aristocracy,  as  an  institution.  Bright  detested 
and  despised.     He  said: 

Two  centuries  ago  the  people  of  this  country  were 
engaged  in  a  fearful  conflict  with  the  Crown.  A 
despotic  and  treacherous  monarch  assumed  to  himself 
the  right  to  levy  taxes  without  the  consent  of  Parlia- 
ment and  the  people.  That  assumption  was  resisted. 
This  fair  island  became  a  battlefield,  the  kingdom  was 
convulsed,  and  an  ancient  throne  overturned.  And 
if  our  forefathers  two  hundred  years  ago  resisted 
that  attempt — if  they  refused  to  be  the  bondmen 
of  a  king — shall  we  be  the  born  thralls  of  an  aristocracy 
like  ours  ?  Shall  we,  who  struck  the  lion  down,  shall 
we  pay  the  wolf  homage  ?  or  shall  we  not,  by  a  manly 
and  united  expression  of  public  opinion,  at  once  and 
for  ever  put  an  end  to  this  giant  wrong  ? 

He  did  not  even  always  speak  respectfully  of  the 
English  Constitution  itself.     He  once  said : 

An  illustrious  member  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  Govern- 
ment declared,  in  1829,  "that  the  sole  alternative  of 
Catholic  emancipation  was  civil  war,  and  to  avert  civil 
war  emancipation  was  granted;  surely  it  was  not  a 
wise  Constitution  which  allowed  things  to  grow  to 

31 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

such  a  pass.  The  noble  lord's  Reform  Bill  was  passed 
in  a  hurricane  of  popular  feeling,  without  which  it 
would  not  have  passed  at  all.  The  Constitution  was 
helped  on  by  brickbats,  the  carriages  of  the  noble 
lords  and  hon.  gentlemen  who  opposed  the  measure 
being  smashed  over  and  over  again,  in  many  towns  and 
villages  of  this  country ;  surely  it  was  not  a  perfect 
Constitution  that  required  the  fillip  of  brickbats.  Mr. 
Dickens  has  a  story  of  a  Captain  Cuttle,  who,  in  making 
a  boy  a  present  of  a  very  large  watch,  tells  him  that  if 
he  only  puts  it  on  a  quarter  of  an  hour  every  morning 
at  breakfast,  and  half  an  hour  every  day  at  dinner,  it 
will  do  him  credit ;  but  whatever  the  case  with  Captain 
Cuttle's  watch,  the  Constitution  which  needs  such 
vehement  jerks  to  keep  it  moving  is  scarcely  one  of 
a  very  creditable  description.  ...  I  can  have  no 
respect  for  a  Constitution,  or  a  system  of  representation 
or  legislation,  which  requires  the  menace  of  civil 
war  ere  it  will  grant  Catholic  emancipation — which 
must  call  in  the  aid  of  brickbats  to  enable  it  to  give  the 
Reform  Bill — and  which  must  be  driven  into  the  Sale  of 
the  Encumbered  Estates  Bill  by  the  starvation  of  half 
a  million  of  the  people  of  Ireland. 

The  Corn  Law  was  the  work  of  the  aristocracy,  and 
Bright  denounced  the  wrong  and  the  wrongdoers 
with  the  passionate  fervour  which  always  burned  in 
his  breast.  Cobden  was,  I  suppose,  the  hero  of  the 
Anti-Corn  Law  agitation  ;  Bright  was  the  orator — 
the  picturesque  figure  which  lent  the  charm  of  elo- 
quence and  passion  and  human  magnetism  to  the 
movement. 

Between  1839  ^^^  ^^4^  ^^^  question  of  the  Corn 
Law  continued  to  occupy  public  attention.  In  1836 
an  Anti-Corn  Law  League  had  been  established 
in  London ;     in    1838    another    was    established    in 

32 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

Manchester.  Bright  and  Cobden  were  of  course  con- 
fronted by  the  difficulties  which  have  to  be  encountered 
by  all  reformers.  The  men  in  authority  said  non  pos- 
sumus.  In  1839  the  Whig  Prime  Minister,  Lord  Mel- 
bourne, declared  before  God  that  he  considered  leaving 
the  whole  '  agricultural  interest  without  protection  the 
wildest  and  maddest  scheme  that  had  ever  entered 
into  the  imagination  of  man.'^  The  Leader  of  Her 
Majesty's  Opposition  in  the  House  of  Commons  joined 
hands  with  Her  Majesty's  Prime  Minister  in  defending 
the  Corn  Law. 

In  1840  Sir  Robert  Peel  said  that  liberal  protection 
to  domestic  agriculture  was  indispensable.*  Mr.  Ash- 
worth,  in  his  *  Recollections  of  Cobden  and  the  League,' 
gives  an  account  of  a  characteristic  interview  between 
a  deputation  of  Leaguers  and  Sir  James  Graham  in 
1840.     Mr.  Ashworth  says: 

When  Mr.  John  Brooks  described  the  distress  in 
the  cotton  trade.  Sir  James  retorted  that  the  consump- 
tion of  cotton  was  greater  than  at  any  previous  period, 
and  Mr.  Thomas  Ashton  replied  that  the  dependents 
were  more  numerous  than  at  any  previous  period,  and 
that  coarser  yarns  were  being  spun.  Mr.  Brooks  pro- 
ceeded with  his  address,  when  Sir  James  tripped  him 
up  again  by  calling  him  a  Chartist;  and  Mr.  W. 
Rawson  interposed,  and  told  Sir  James  that  Mr. 
Brooks  was  not  a  Chartist,  but  that  he  (Mr.  Rawson) 
had  no  objection  to  be  called  by  that  name.  My 
turn  came  next,  and  I  exclaimed  against  the  in- 
justice of  restricting  the  imports  of  food  in  order 
to  uphold  rents,  showing  that  the  inevitable  effect 
would  be  to  increase  the  sense  of  unfair  treatment 

*  Walpole,  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.  p.  530.  *  Ibid. 

33 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

which  was  now  felt  by  the  people,  and  which  it 
behoved  every  well-wisher  of  his  country  not  to 
disregard.  At  this  point  Sir  James  called  out,  *Why, 
you  are  a  leveller,'  and  in  an  insolent  tone  inquired 
'  whether  he  was  to  infer  that  the  labouring  classes 
had  some  claim  to  the  landlords'  estates/  Being 
somewhat  startled,  I  appealed  to  my  colleagues  as  to 
whether  anything  I  had  said  supported  such  an  idea, 
when  Mr.  Thomas  Ashton  called  out,  '  Go  on,  Mr.  Ash- 
worth,  and  never  mind  what  he  has  said.'  Sir  James, 
in  reply  to  the  deputation,  said  that  if  the  Corn  Law 
were  repealed,  great  disasters  would  fall  upon  the 
country,  that  the  land  would  go  out  of  cultivation, 
that  Church  and  State  could  not  be  upheld,  that  all 
our  institutions  would  be  reduced  to  their  primitive 
elements,  and  that  the  people  we  were  exciting  would 
pull  down  our  houses  about  our  ears.  We  responded 
to  the  effect  that  to  uphold  our  institutions  we  must 
remove  injustice,  that  we  had  no  fear  for  our  own 
houses,  and  that  whatever  might  become  of  the 
Established  Church,  we  had  no  fear  for  religion. 

But  let  all  reformers  gather  comfort  from  what 
followed.  In  1842  Lord  J  ohn  Russell,  then  Leader  of  the 
Opposition,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel,  then  Prime  Minister, 
proposed  a  change  in  the  Corn  Law.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  enter  into  details.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  Peel  proposed 
a  graduated  scale,  which  it  was  suggested  would  be  more 
favourable  to  the  consumer  than  the  existing  system, 
and  Russell  proposed  a  fixed  duty.  To  the  proposal 
of  the  Prime  Minister  and  the  proposal  of  the  Leader 
of  the  Opposition  Bright  and  Cobden  said  in  effect, 
'  A  plague  on  both  your  houses.  We  shall  have  neither 
your  graduated  scale  nor  your  fixed  duty.  We  want  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn  Law  root  and  branch ;  and  for  this 

34 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

object  we  shall  fight  to  the  end/  Between  1839  ^-nd 
1846  much  distress  prevailed  in  England,  and  the 
agricultural  labourer,  though  protected,  fared  no 
better  in  these  crises  than  the  working  classes  generally. 
'  I  be  protected,  and  I  be  starving,'  an  agricultural 
labourer  once  said  at  a  meeting  of  the  League.  The 
words  made  a  deep  impression  upon  Bright,  and  he 
often  quoted  them. 

'  In  1835,'  says  Sir  Spencer  Walpole,  '  the  average 
price  of  wheat  was  only  £1  19s.  4^.  the  Imperial  bushel ; 
it  rose  to  £2  85.  6d.  in  1836  ;  to  £2  15s.  lod,  in  1837  ; 
to  £3  4s.  yd,  in  1838  ;  to  £3  los.  M.  in  1839,  ^^^  i^  ^i^ 
not  again  fall  below  £3  a  bushel  till  after  the  change  of 
Government  in  1841.  A  quarter  of  wheat  is  the  average 
annual  consumption  of  each  member  of  that  portion  of 
the  population  which  lives  upon  bread.  A  labouring 
man  with  a  wife  and  three  children  would  probably 
require  annually  five  quarters  of  wheat.  To  such  a 
man,  therefore,  a  rise  of  price  of  30s.  a  quarter  was 
equivalent  to  an  increased  expenditure  of  £7  los.  a  year 
— or,  if  his  wages  were  £i  a  week,  to  an  income  tax  of 
14  per  cent.  ;  if  his  wages  were  los.  a  week,  to  an 
income  tax  of  28  per  cent.  It  need  hardly,  therefore, 
be  added  that  the  poor  suffered  as  much  from  the 
increased  price  of  bread  as  from  the  reduced  value  of 
their  labour.  "  Child,  is  thy  father  dead  ?  "  so  ran  the 
touching  question  of  the  poet  of  the  poor — 

Child,  is  thy  father  dead? — 

God's  will  be  done. 
Mother  has  sold  her  bed, 
Better  to  die  than  wed. 
Where  shall  she  lay  her  head  } 

Home  she  has  none. 

The  expedients  to  which  the  poor  were  reduced  for 
the  sake  of  food  almost  exceed  belief.     The  author 


35 


D  2 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

of  the  ''  Poor  Law  Catechism ''  said  that  '*  Pennyworths 
of  mutton  and  halfpennyworths  of  bread  cut  off  the 
loaf  are  what  the  shopkeepers  of  Bolton  deal  out  to 
the  inhabitants  of  their  Jerusalem/'  *'  I  could  tell  you/' 
so  ran  a  letter  from  Johnstone,  ''  of  mothers  dividing 
a  farthing  herring  and  a  halfpennyworth  of  potatoes 
among  a  family  of  seven/'  Such  expedients  seemed 
tolerable  compared  with  others  which  were  resorted 
to  at  the  same  time.  Children  fought  each  other  in  the 
streets  for  the  offal  which  rich  men  do  not  allow  their 
dogs  to  touch.  A  gentleman  saw  a  labourer  standing 
over  his  swill  tub  voraciously  devouring  the  wash 
intended  for  the  pigs.  Twenty  women  begged  a 
farmer  to  allow  them  to  disinter  the  body  of  a  cow, 
which  he  had  buried  thirty-six  hours  before  as  unfit 
for  human  food.  Starving  men  and  women,  or,  worse 
still,  men  and  women  seeing  their  children  starve  before 
their  eyes,  readily  seized  the  vilest  substances  which 
enabled  them  to  protract  for  a  few  hours  longer  their 
miserable  lives.'  i 

Bright  once  expressed  his  astonishment  that  it 
should  have  taken  seven  years'  constant  agitation  to 
make  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Lord  John  Russell  free 
traders.  We  have  seen  that  in  1840  both  statesmen 
were  against  the  repeal  of  the  Com  Law.  It  is  worth 
while  to  recall  the  circumstances  under  which  they 
became  converted  to  the  views  of  Bright  and  Cobden. 
The  story  will  be  found  in  its  latest  form  in  the  '  Letters 
of  Queen  Victoria.*  It  was  the  dark  cloud  on  the 
political  horizon,  foreboding  famine  in  Ireland,  that 
brought  Whig  and  Tory  leaders  to  their  bearings  in 

1845. 

On   November    i    of  that    year    Peel    called   his 

*  Walpole,  History  of  England,  vol.  iv.  p.  26. 

36 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

Cabinet  together.  The  Prince  Consort,  in  a  Memo- 
randum based  on  the  information  which  Peel  gave 
him,  states  what  happened  : 

[Sir  Robert  Peel  placed  before  his  Cabinet]  the 
reports  of  the  Irish  Commissioners,  Dr.  Buckland, 
Dr.  Play  fair,  and  Dr.  lindley,  on  the  condition 
of  the  potato  crop,  which  was  to  the  effect  that 
the  half  of  the  potatoes  were  ruined  by  the  rot,  and 
that  no  one  could  guarantee  the  remainder.  Belgium, 
Holland,  Sweden,  and  Denmark,  in  which  States  the 
potato  disease  had  likewise  deprived  the  poorer 
class  of  its  usual  food,  have  immediately  taken 
energetic  means,  and  have  opened  the  harbours, 
bought  corn,  and  provided  for  the  case  of  a  rise  of 
prices.  Sir  Robert  proposed  the  same  thing  for 
England,  and,  by  opening  the  ports,  a  preparation 
for  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Law.  His  colleagues 
refused,  and  of  the  whole  Cabinet  only  Lord  Aberdeen, 
Sir  James  Graham,  and  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert  voted  with 
him.  Sir  Robert  hoped  that  in  time  the  opinions  of 
the  others  would  change,  and  therefore  postponed  a 
final  decision. 

Meanwhile  Bright  and  Cobden  and  the  Anti-Corn 
Law  Leaguers  redoubled  their  efforts  to  rouse  public 
feeling.  Intense  excitement  prevailed  everywhere ; 
and,  in  the  midst  of  it  all,  the  Times  '  became,' 
as  the  Prince  Consort  said,  'suddenly  violently  Anti- 
Corn  Law.' 

Peel  called  another  meeting  of  his  Cabinet  (towards 
the  end  of  November).  During  their  deliberations 
Lord  John  Russell  addressed  a  letter^  to  the  City  of 

*  Russell's  letter  was  published  on  November  27. 

37 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

London  declaring  himself  in  favour  of  the  total  and 
immediate  abolition  of  the  Com  Law.  This  letter  fell 
like  a  thunderbolt  on  the  councils  of  the  Peel  Ministry. 
'As  soon/  says  Sir  Robert  Peel,  *as  I  saw  Lord  John's 
letter  I  felt  that  the  ground  was  slipping  away  from 
under  me,  and  that  whatever  I  might  now  propose 
would  appear  as  dictated  by  the  Opposition,  as  taking 
Lord  John's  measure.' 

Peel  now  urged  the  necessity  of  unanimous  action 
by  the  Cabinet,  and  pressed  his  colleagues  for  a  decision. 
The  Prince  Consort  continues: 

The  Duke  of  Buccleuch  and  Lord  Stanley  declared 
they  could  not  take  a  part  in  a  measure  abolishing  the 
Corn  Laws,  and  would  therefore  have  to  resign.  The 
other  members,  including  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
showed  themselves  ready  to  support  Sir  Robert,  yet, 
as  the  latter  says,  '  apparently  not  willingly,  and  against 
their  feelings.'  Thereupon  Sir  Robert  resolved  to  lay 
down  his  office  as  Minister  (December  5).^ 

Queen  Victoria  sent  for  Lord  John  Russell,  who  tried 
to  form  an  administration  but  failed,  whereupon  Sir 
Robert  Peel  withdrew  his  offer  of  resignation.  On 
December  21  he  wrote  to  the  Queen  (having  previously 
had  an  interview  with  her  and  the  Prince  Consort  on 
learning  of  Lord  John  Russell's  failure) : 

Sir  Robert  Peel  presents  his  humble  dut\7  to  your 
Majesty,  and  proceeds  to  give  your  Majesty  an  account 
of  what  has  passed  since  he  left  your  Majesty  at  four 

'  Letters  of  Queen  Victoria,  vol.  ii.  p.  56. 

38 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

o'clock  yesterday.  The  Cabinet  met  at  Sir  Robert 
Peel's  house  in  Downing  Street  at  half-past  nine.  Sir 
Robert  Peel  informed  them  that  he  had  not  summoned 
them  for  the  purpose  of  deliberating  on  what  was 
to  be  done,  but  for  the  purpose  of  announcing  to  them 
that  he  was  your  Majesty's  Minister,  and,  whether 
supported  or  not,  was  firmly  resolved  to  meet  Parlia- 
ment as  your  Majesty's  Minister,  and  to  propose  such 
measures  as  the  public  exigencies  required. 

Failure  or  success  must  depend  upon  their  decision, 
but  nothing  could  shake  Sir  Robert  Peel's  deter- 
mination to  meet  Parliament  and  to  advise  the  Speech 
from  the  Throne.  There  was  a  dead  silence,  at  length 
interrupted  by  Lord  Stanley's  declaring  that  he  must 
persevere  in  resigning,  that  he  thought  the  Corn  Law 
ought  to  be  adhered  to  and  might  have  been  main- 
tained. 

The  Duke  of  Wellington  said  he  thought  the 
Corn  Law  was  a  subordinate  consideration.  He  was 
delighted  when  he  received  Sir  Robert  Peel's  letter 
that  day,  announcing  to  the  Duke  that  his  mind 
was  made  up  to  place  his  services  at  your  Majesty's 
disposal. 

The  Duke  of  Buccleuch  behaved  admirably — was 
much  agitated — thought  new  circumstances  had  arisen 
— would  not  then  decide  on  resigning. 

Sir  Robert  Peel  has  received  this  morning  the 
enclosed  note  from  the  Duke. 

He  has  written  a  reply  very  strongly  to  the  Duke, 
stating  that  the  present  question  is  not  one  of  Com 
Law,  but  whether  your  Majesty's  former  servants  or 
Lord  Grey  and  Mr.  Cobden  shall  constitute  your 
Majesty's  Government.  Sir  Robert  Peel  defied  the 
wit  of  man  to  suggest  now  another  alternative  to  your 
Majesty.^ 

^  See  Letters  of  Queen  Victoria,  vol.  ii. 

39 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Greville  also  gives  us  a  peep  behind  the  scenes 
during  the  Ministerial  crisis.     He  says  : 

Clarendon  received  Henry  Pierrepoint  at  the  Grove 
a  few  days  ago,  who  came  from  Strathfieldsaye,  and 
his  account  of  the  Duke,  and  of  what  he  said,  is  not 
without  interest,  so  I  transcribe  it  from  his  letter.  .  .  . 
It  is  clear  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  resents  the  whole 
of  Peel's  conduct,  that  he  dislikes  him,  feels  he  has 
never  had  his  whole  confidence  and  has  foreseen  for 
the  last  six  months  that  he  was  preparing  to  over- 
throw the  Corn  Law.  Pierrepoint  considers  this  to 
be  the  cause  of  the  unapproachable  state  of  irritation 
in  which  he  has  been  during  the  autumn.  The  Duke 
says,   'Rotten  potatoes  have  done  it  all;    they  put 

Peel  in  his  d d  fright '  ;  and  both  for  the  cause  and 

the  effect  he  seems  to  feel  equal  contempt.  When  he 
found  that  Peel  was  determined  to  meddle  with  the 
Corn  Law,  he  wrote  a  long  paper  against  it,  but  said 
that  he  should  defer  to  Peel,  and  certainly  not  leave 
the  Government  if  the  majority  of  the  Cabinet  were 
in  favour  of  the  measure.  He  was  not,  however,  sorry 
to  be  released  by  the  maj  ority  being  dissentient.  When 
they  all  shuffled  back  to  their  places  by  the  Queen's 
command,  he  looked  on  himself  as  one  of  the  rank 
and  file,  ordered  to  fall  in,  and  he  set  about  doing  his 
duty  and  preparing  for  battle.  He  has  written  a 
great  many  letters  to  Tory  lords,  such  as  Rutland, 
Beaufort,  Salisbury,  Exeter,  and  has  received  some 
very  stiff  and  unsatisfactory  answers,  particularly 
from  Beaufort,  who  tells  him  that  when  they  all 
sacrificed  their  opinions  on  the  Catholic  Question,  they 
had  at  the  head  of  the  Government  a  leader  on  whose 
honour  they  relied  and  whose  conscientious  motives 
they  could  not  but  respect ;  but  that  the  case  was 
very  different  now,  when  they  had  for  their  leader  a 
man  who  had  violated  every  principle  and  pledge,  and 

40 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

in  whom  no  party  could  put  any  trust!  I  have 
little  doubt  that  Alvanley,  who  has  long  been  laid  up 
at  Badminton,  dictated  this  letter,  for  he  is  very 
violent,  and  says  *  Peel  ought  not  to  die  a  natural 
death/ 

There  has  been  a  curious  scene  with  Melbourne 
at  Windsor,  which  was  told  me  by  Jocelyn,  who  was 
present.  It  was  at  dinner,  when  Melbourne  was  sitting 
next  to  the  Queen.  Some  allusion  was  made  to  passing 
events  and  to  the  expected  measure,  when  Melbourne 
suddenly  broke  out,  '  Ma'am,  it  is  a  damned  dishonest 
act.'  The  Queen  laughed,  and  tried  to  quiet  him,  but 
he  repeated,  *  I  say  again,  it  is  a  very  dishonest  act,' 
and  then  he  continued  a  tirade  against  the  abolition 
of  the  Corn  Law,  the  people  not  knowing  how  to  look, 
and  the  Queen  only  laughing.  The  Court  is  very 
strong  in  favour  of  Free  Trade,  and  not  less  in  favour 
of  Peel.i 

Peel  finally  resumed  office.^  On  the  meeting  of 
Parliament  on  February  22,  1846,  he  immediately  took 
up  the  question  of  the  Corn  Law,  and  before  the  end 
of  the  Session  a  measure  for  its  repeal  was  placed 
on  the  statute  book.  A  sliding  scale  was  adopted 
for  three  years,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  the  Law 
was  to  disappear  altogether.  Amid  the  torrent  of 
abuse  which  was  poured  on  Peel  for  '  betraying  his 
party,'  Bright's  panegyric  must  have  come  as  balm 
in  Gilead  to  the  harassed  Minister.  Indeed,  we  are 
told  that  the  tears  rolled  down  his  cheeks  as  the 
great  Liberal  orator  in  glowing  language  vindicated 
his  policy  and  his  character.     Bright  said  : 

^  Greville,  vol.  ii.  p.  351. 

2  The  Duke  of  Buccleuch  withdrew  his  resignation,  but  Stanley 
retired  from  the  Ministry. 

41 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

You  say  the  right  hon.  baronet  is  a  traitor.  It 
would  ill  become  me  to  attempt  his  defence  after  the 
speech  which  he  delivered  last  night — a  speech,  I  will 
venture  to  say,  more  powerful  and  more  to  be  admired 
than  any  speech  which  has  been  delivered  within  the 
memory  of  any  man  in  this  House.  I  watched 
the  right  hon.  baronet  as  he  went  home  last  night, 
and  for  the  first  time  I  envied  him  his  feelings.  That 
speech  has  circulated  by  scores  of  thousands  throughout 
the  kingdom  and  throughout  the  world  ;  and  wherever 
a  man  is  to  be  found  who  loves  justice,  and  wherever 
there  is  a  labourer  whom  you  have  trampled  under  foot, 
that  speech  will  bring  joy  to  the  heart  of  the  one  and 
hope  to  the  breast  of  the  other.  You  chose  the  right 
hon.  baronet — why  ?  Because  he  was  the  ablest  man 
of  your  party.  You  always  said  so,  and  you  will  not 
deny  it  now.  Why  was  he  the  ablest  ?  Because  he 
had  great  experience,  profound  attainments,  and  an 
honest  regard  for  the  good  of  the  country.  You  placed 
him  in  office.  When  a  man  is  in  office  he  is  not  the 
same  man  as  when  in  opposition.  The  present  genera- 
tion or  posterity  does  not  deal  as  mildly  with  men 
in  Government  as  with  those  in  Opposition.  There  are 
such  things  as  the  responsibilities  of  office.  Look  at 
the  population  of  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire,  and  there 
is  not  a  man  among  you  who  would  have  the  valour 
to  take  office  and  raise  the  standard  of  Protection  and 
cry,  *Down  with  the  Anti-Corn  Law  League,  and 
Protection  for  ever !  '  There  is  not  a  man  in  your 
ranks  who  would  dare  to  sit  on  that  bench  as  the 
Prime  Minister  of  England  pledged  to  maintain  the 
existing  law.  The  right  hon.  baronet  took  the  only, 
the  truest,  course  —  he  resigned.  He  told  you  by 
that  act,  '  I  will  no  longer  do  your  work ;  I  will  not 
defend  your  cause.  The  experience  I  have  had  since 
I  came  into  office  renders  it  impossible  for  me  at 
once  to  maintain   office   and  the  Corn  Law.'      The 

42 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

right  hon.  baronet  resigned — he  was  then  no  longer 
your  Minister.  He  came  back  to  office  as  the  Minister 
of  his  sovereign  and  of  the  people. 

All  those  who  remember  Bright  in  the  days  of  the 
Anti-Corn  Law  agitation  have  passed  away,  and  it 
is  now  impossible  to  collect  those  personal  and  private 
details  about  him,  at  that  time,  which  are  so  valuable 
to  the  biographer.  I  have,  however,  met  one  person 
who  knew  Bright  intimately  in  those  days — his 
sister  Mrs.  McLaren.  But  when  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  calling  upon  her  she  was  in  advanced  years  and 
delicate  health,  though  full  of  intelligence  and  vivacity. 
She  told  me  that  she  was  with  her  distinguished 
brother  at  Inverness  in  1845,  when  Mr.  Cobden  wrote 
stating  that  he  would  be  obliged  to  retire  from  public 
life  owing  to  financial  embarrassments.  The  news 
distressed  Bright  greatly,  and  put  an  end  to  his 
holiday.  Cobden's  letter  was  destroyed  at  his  request, 
but  we  have  what  Lord  Morley  rightly  calls  Bright's 
'beautiful'  reply: 

Inverness  :  September  20,  1845. 

My  DEAR  Cobden, — I  received  your  letter  of  the 
15th  yesterday  evening,  on  my  arrival  here.  Its 
contents  have  made  me  more  sad  than  I  can  express  ; 
it  seems  as  if  this  untoward  event  contained  within  it 
an  affliction  personal  for  myself,  great  public  loss,  a 
heavy  blow  to  one  for  whom  I  feel  a  sincere  friendship 
and  not  a  little  of  danger  to  the  great  cause  in  which 
we  have  been  fellow-labourers. 

I  would  return  home  without  a  day's  delay  if  I  had 
a  valid  excuse  for  my  sisters,  who  are  here  with  me. 
We  have  now  been  out  nearly  three  weeks,  and  may 
possibly  be  as  much  longer  before  we  reach  home ; 

43 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

our  plan  being  pretty  well  chalked  out  beforehand,  I 
don't  see  how  I  can  greatly  change  it  without  giving  a 
sufficient  reason.  But  it  does  not  appear  needful 
that  you  should  take  any  hasty  step  in  the  matter. 
Too  much  is  at  stake,  both  for  you  and  for  the  public, 
to  make  any  sudden  decision  advisable.  I  may  there- 
fore be  home  in  time  for  us  to  have  some  conversation 
before  anything  comes  before  the  public.  Nothing 
of  it  shall  pass  my  lips,  and  I  would  urge  nothing  to  be 
done  till  the  latest  moment,  in  the  hope  that  some 
way  of  escape  may  yet  be  found.  I  am  of  opinion 
that  your  retirement  would  be  tantamount  to  a 
dissolution  of  the  League;  its  mainspring  would  be 
gone.  I  can  in  no  degree  take  your  place.  As  a 
second  I  can  fight ;  but  there  are  incapacities  about  me, 
of  which  I  am  fully  conscious,  which  prevent  my  being 
more  than  a  second  in  such  a  work  as  we  have  laboured 
in.  Do  not  think  I  wish  to  add  to  your  trouble  by 
writing  thus  ;  but  I  am  most  anxious  that  some  delay 
should  take  place,  and  therefore  I  urge  that  which  I 
fully  believe,  that  the  League's  existence  depends 
mostly  upon  you,  and  that  if  the  shock  cannot  be 
avoided,  it  should  be  given  only  after  the  weightiest 
consideration,  and  in  such  way  as  to  produce  the  least 
evil. 

Be  assured  that  in  all  this  disappointment  you  have 
my  heartfelt  sympathy.  We  have  worked  long  and 
hard  and  cordially  together,  and  I  can  say  most 
truly  that  the  more  I  have  known  of  you,  the  more 
have  I  had  reason  to  admire  and  esteem  you  ;  and  now, 
when  a  heavy  cloud  seems  upon  us,  I  must  not  wholly 
give  up  the  hope  that  we  may  yet  labour  in  the  good 
cause  until  all  is  gained  for  which  we  have  striven. 
You  speak  of  the  attempts  which  have  been  made  to 
raise  the  passion  which  led  to  the  death  of  Abel,  and 
to  weaken  us  by  destroying  the  confidence  which  was 
needful    to    our    successful    co-operation.     If    such 

44 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

attempts  have  been  made,  they  have  wholly  failed. 
To  help  on  the  cause,  I  am  sure  each  of  us  would  in 
any  way  have  led  or  followed  ;  we  held  our  natural  and 
just  position,  and  hence  our  success.  In  myself  I 
know  nothing  that  at  this  moment  would  rejoice  me 
more,  except  the  absence  of  these  difficulties,  than  that 
my  retirement  from  the  field  could  in  any  way  maintain 
you  in  the  front  rank.  The  victory  is  now  in  reality 
gained,  and  our  object  will  before  very  long  be  accom- 
plished ;  but  it  is  often  as  difficult  to  leave  a  victory 
as  to  gain  it,  and  the  sagacity  of  leaders  cannot  be 
dispensed  with  while  anything  remains  to  be  done.  Be 
assured  I  shall  think  of  little  else  but  this  distressing 
turn  of  affairs  till  I  meet  you  ;  and  whilst  I  am  sorry 
that  such  should  be  the  position  of  things,  I  cannot 
but  applaud  the  determination  you  show  to  look  them 
full  in  the  face,  and  to  grapple  with  the  difficulties 
whilst  they  are  yet  surmountable.  I  have  written 
this  letter  under  feelings  to  which  I  have  not  been  able 
to  give  expression,  but  you  will  believe  that  I  am, 
with  much  sympathy  and  esteem. 

Your  sincere  friend, 

John  Bright. 

Despite  this  letter,  in  a  few  days  Bright  hastened 
'  southwards '  to  be  near  his  friend.  In  1889, 
a  few  months  after  Bright's  death,  I  met  Charles 
Villiers  —  the  father  of  the  Anti-Corn  Law  move- 
ment— at  the  house  of  a  friend.  We  talked  of 
Bright.  Villiers  said,  *  Well,  it  is  perhaps  all  the 
better  that  Bright  has  gone.  It  would  have  been  a 
great  trial  to  him  to  have  lived  to  see  the  principles 
for  which  he  fought  so  strenuously  and  successfully 
overthrown'  (at  this  time  the  subject  of  'Fair Trade'— 
the  thin  end,  people  said,  of  the  Protectionist  wedge— 

45 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

occupied  public  attention).  I  said,  '  Assuredly  you  do 
not  think  that  there  is  any  danger  of  the  principles  of 
Free  Trade  being  overturned.'  Villiers  shook  his  head 
and  said,  *  Oh  !  anything  may  happen.'  The  idea  of 
Fair  Trade  (which  was  regarded  at  the  time  as  a  joke 
by  both  English  parties)  has  since  developed  into 
Tariff  Reform  ;  and  Tariff  Reform  is  now  the  policy  of 
the  Tory  Party.  Will  England  return  to  Protection? 
That  is  the  question  of  the  hour.  I  shall  conclude 
this  chapter  by  quoting  a  letter  written  by  Bright 
to  Mr.  Lord,  of  Bradford,  in  1881  on  the  question  of 
'  Reciprocal  Tariffs ' : 

One  Ash,  Rochdale  :    April  15,  1881. 

Sir, — I  cannot  reply  at  length  to  letters  like  yours. 
Only  last  week,  I  think,  a  letter  from  me  on  the  subject 
on  which  you  have  written  was  published  in  your 
newspaper.     I  can  only  refer  you  to  it. 

The  home  trade  is  bad,  mainly  or  entirely  because 
our  harvests  have  been  bad  for  several  years.  During 
the  last  two  or  three  years  I  believe  the  agricultural 
classes — owners  and  occupiers  of  land  in  the  three 
kingdoms — have  lost  more  than  150  millions  sterling 
through  the  great  deficiency  of  our  harvests.  This 
great  loss  must  inevitably  and  seriously  depress  all  our 
other  industries.  It  is  not  Bradford  alone  that  has 
suffered.  Rochdale  in  its  flannel  trade  has  suffered, 
the  whole  cotton  trade  of  Lancashire  has  suffered 
greatly,  and  much  of  all  this  is  to  be  attributed  to 
the  condition  of  our  great  farming  interest,  and  this 
again  to  the  unfavourable  seasons  of  several  recent 
years. 

The  remedy  will  come  with  more  sunshine  and 
better  yield  from  the  land.  Without  this  it  cannot  come. 
To   imagine   that   your   suffering   springs   now   from 

46 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

hostile  tariffs  is  absurd,  because  you  have  had  great 
prosperity  with  the  same  tariffs;  but  to  suppose  your 
case  will  be  improved  by  refusing  to  buy  what  you  want 
from  foreigners,  to  punish  them  for  not  buying  freely 
from  you,  seems  to  me  an  idea  and  a  scheme  only 
worthy  of  the  inmates  of  a  lunatic  asylum. 

To  return  to  Protection,  under  the  name  of  recipro- 
city, is  to  confess  to  the  Protectionists  abroad  that  we 
have  been  wrong  and  that  they  are  right,  and  Protection 
will  henceforth  be  the  justified  policy  of  all  nations. 
If  Protection  be  needful  and  good,  surely  at  this 
moment  it  is  needful  for  our  farming  class ;  and  yet  who 
dares  to  propose  another  sliding  scale  or  a  fixed  duty 
on  the  import  of  foreign  corn  ?  Bradford  must  be 
watchful  and  patient — to  look  out  for  new  markets  or 
new  products  for  her  looms,  and  to  endure  a  temporary 
reverse,  to  be  followed,  I  trust,  at  no  remote  period, 
with  a  revival  of  prosperity.  Bradford  has  had  a 
good  *  innings  '  since  i860.  She  gained  more  than 
other  towns  from  Mr.  Cobden's  treaty  with  France. 
Great  success  and  great  expansion  of  business  are 
followed  by  depression,  to  be  followed,  I  hope  and 
believe,  by  a  return  to  a  fair  measure  of  prosperity. 
But  our  recovery  depends  more  on  the  produce  of  our 
harvests  than  on  foreign  tariffs  or  on  the  changes  in 
the  fashion  of  dress  to  which  you  refer. 

I  am,  sincerely  yours, 

John  Bright. 

Mr.  W.  Y.  Lord, 

I  Norfolk  Street,  Bradford. 


Note  to  Chapter  III 

During  the  crisis  of  1846  it  was  feared  that  the 
House  of  Lords  would  not  support  Peel  in  his  efforts 

47 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

to  repeal  the  Corn  Law.  The  Prince  Consort  said  to 
the  Duke  of  WelUngton,  '  You  have  such  an  influence 
over  the  House  of  Lords  that  you  will  be  able  to  keep 
them  straight.'  The  Duke  of  Wellington  replied,  '  Til 
do  anything ;  I  am  now  beginning  to  write  to  them 
and  to  convince  them  singly  of  what  their  duty  is.' 

The  Duke  of  Wellington  did  keep  the  House  of 
Lords  straight,  and  it  has  been  said  that  his  action 
in  doing  so  on  this  critical  occasion  is  his  best  claim 
to  statesmanship.  On  May  28,  1846,  he  moved 
the  second  reading  of  the  Anti-Corn  Law  Bill.  He 
said  : 

My  noble  friend  [Lord  Stanley],  whose  absence  on 
this  occasion  I  much  lament,  urged  you,  and  in  the 
strongest  manner,  to  vote  against  this  measure  ;  and 
he  told  you,  in  terms  which  I  cannot  attempt  to  imi- 
tate, that  it  was  your  duty  to  step  in  and  protect  the 
people  of  this  country  from  rash  and  inconsiderate 
measures  passed  by  the  other  House  of  Parliament, 
and  which,  in  his  opinion,  were  inconsistent  with  the 
views  and  opinions  of  the  people  themselves.  My 
Lords,  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  it  is  your  duty 
to  consider  all  the  measures  which  are  brought  before 
you,  and  that  it  is  your  right  to  vote  in  regard  to  those 
measures  as  you  think  proper,  and,  most  particularly, 
it  is  your  duty  to  vote  against  those  that  appear  to  be 
rash  and  inconsiderate  ;  but,  my  Lords,  I  beg  leave  to 
point  out  to  your  Lordships  that  it  is  also  your  duty  to 
consider  well  the  consequences  of  any  vote  you  give 
on  any  subject — to  consider  well  the  situation  in  which 
you  place  this  House — nay,  my  Lords,  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  one  of  you  to  place  himself  in  the  situa- 
tion of  this  House,  to  ponder  well  the  consequences  of 
his  vote  and  all  the  circumstances  attending  it,  and  the 
situation,   I  repeat,   in  which  this  House  would  be 

48 


THE  ANTI-CORN  LAW  AGITATION 

placed  if  it  should  adopt  the  vote  which  he  himself  is 
about  to  give. 

This  measure,  my  Lords,  was  recommended  by  the 
Speech  from  the  Throne,  and  it  has  been  passed  by  a 
majority  of  the  House  of  Commons,  consisting  of  more 
than  half  the  members  of  that  House.  But  my  noble 
friend  said  that  [it  is]  inconsistent  with  the  supposed 
views  of  the  constituents  by  whom  they  were  elected. 
But,  my  Lords,  I  think  that  is  not  a  subject  which  this 
House  can  take  into  its  consideration — for,  first,  we 
can  have  no  accurate  knowledge  of  the  fact ;  and, 
secondly,  whether  it  be  the  fact  or  not,  this  we  know — 
that  it  is  the  House  of  Commons  from  which  this  Bill 
comes  to  us.  We  know  by  the  votes  that  it  has  been 
passed  by  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  we 
know  that  is  recommended  by  the  Crown  ;  and  we 
know  that,  if  we  should  reject  this  Bill,  it  is  a  Bill  which 
has  been  agreed  to  by  the  other  two  branches  of  the 
Legislature,  and  that  the  House  of  Lords  stands  alone 
in  rejecting  this  measure.  Now  that,  my  Lords,  is  a 
situation  in  which,  I  beg  to  remind  your  Lordships,  I 
have  frequently  stated  you  ought  not  to  stand ;  it  is 
a  position  in  which  you  cannot  stand,  because  you  are 
entirely  powerless  ;  without  the  House  of  Commons 
and  the  Crown,  the  House  of  Lords  can  do  nothing. 
You  have  vast  influence  on  public  opinion  ;  you  may 
have  great  confidence  in  your  own  principles  ;  but 
without  the  Crown  and  the  House  of  Commons  you  can 
do  nothing — till  the  connexion  with  the  Crown  and  the 
House  of  Commons  is  revived,  there  is  an  end  of  the 
functions  of  the  House  of  Lords.i 

^  See  Letters  of  Queen  Victoria^  vol.  ii.  p.  77,  and  Hansard. 


49 


CHAPTER  IV 

IRELAND 

Part  I.— English  Policy 

There  was  perhaps  no  subject  in  which  Bright  felt  a 
keener  interest  during  the  best  part  of  his  pubHc  Ufe 
than  in  Ireland.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  Bright  and 
Disraeli  were  the  only  Englishmen  who  in  days  past 
understood  the  Irish  Question  ;  but  that  while  Bright 
tried  to  remedy  the  evils  of  English  misgovernment  in 
the  island,  Disraeli  did  not  trouble  himself  about  them. 
Nevertheless,  the  Irish  '  problem  '  was  never  better 
stated  than  by  the  brilliant  adventurer  who  was 
destined  to  become  leader  of  the  Tory  Party,  and 
Prime  Minister  of  England.  Speaking  in  the  House 
of  Commons  in  1844,  tie  said  : 

The  Irish,  in  extreme  distress,  inhabit  an  island 
where  there  is  an  Established  Church  which  is  not 
their  Church,  and  a  territorial  aristocracy  the  richest 
of  whom  live  in  foreign  capitals.  Thus  you  have  a 
starving  population,  an  absentee  aristocracy,  and  an 
alien  Church  ;  and  in  addition  the  weakest  executive 
in  the  world.  That  is  the  Irish  Question.  Well,  then, 
what  would  hon.  gentlemen  say  if  they  were  reading 

50 


IRELAND 

of  a  country  in  that  position  ?  They  would  say  at  once, 
'  The  remedy  is  revolution/  But  the  Irish  cannot 
have  a  revolution,  and  why?  Because  Ireland  is 
connected  with  another  and  more  powerful  country. 
Then  what  is  the  consequence  ?  The  connexion  with 
England  thus  became  the  cause  of  the  present  state 
of  Ireland.  If  the  connexion  with  England  prevents 
a  revolution,  and  a  revolution  is  the  only  remedy, 
England  logically  is  in  the  odious  position  of  being 
the  cause  of  all  the  misery  of  Ireland.  What,  then, 
is  the  duty  of  an  English  Minister  ?  To  effect  by  his 
policy  all  those  changes  which  a  revolution  would  do 
by  force.     That  is  the  Irish  Question  in  its  integrity. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  Bright  fully  recog- 
nised that  Disraeli  understood  the  Irish  Question  as 
well  as  he  did  himself.  Speaking  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  in  1868,  on  Mr.  John  Francis  Maguire's 
motion  for  an  inquiry  into  the  state  of  Ireland  (then 
convulsed  by  Fenianism),  Bright  asked  what  was  the 
cause  of  Irish  discontent  and  disloyalty,  and  went  on  : 

The  right  hon.  gentleman  at  the  head  of  the 
Government  [Disraeli]  understands  it  not  only  as  well 
as  I  do,  but  he  understands  it  precisely  in  the  same 
sense ;  and  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  when  I 
stated  in  this  House  the  things,  or  nearly  the  things, 
I  stated  recently  and  shall  state  to-night,  he,  from  your 
own  benches,  was  making  speeches  exactly  of  the  same 
import.  And  though  there  is  many  a  thing  he  seems 
at  times  not  to  recollect,  yet  I  am  bound  to  say  he 
recollects  these  words,  and  the  impressions  of  which 
these  words  were  the  expressions  to  the  House.  He 
referred  to  an  absentee  aristocracy  and  an  alien 
Church.  I  would  not  say  a  syllable  about  the  aristo- 
cracy in  this  matter  ;   if  I  had  to  choose  a  phrase,  I 

51 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

would  rather  say  an    absentee    proprietary  and    an 
alien  Church. 

Bright,  as  we  have  seen,  entered  the  House  of 
Commons  in  1843,  and  Ireland  soon  engaged  his 
attention.  Replying  to  an  address  presented  to  him 
in  Dublin  in  1866,  he  gave  an  interesting  little  bit  of 
autobiography^ : 

The  address  speaks  of  the  friendly  feeling  and  the 
sympathy  which  I  have  had  for  Ireland  during  my 
political  career.  When  I  first  went  into  the  House  of 
Commons  the  most  prominent  figure  in  it  was  Daniel 
O'Connell.  I  have  sat  by  his  side  for  hours  in  that 
House,  and  listened  to  observations  both  amusing  and 
instructive  on  what  was  passing  under  discussion. 
I  have  seen  him,  too,  more  than  once  upon  the  plat- 
forms of  the  Anti-Corn  Law  League.  I  recollect  that 
on  one  occasion  he  sent  to  Ireland  expressly  for  a 
newspaper  for  me,  which  contained  a  report  of  a 
speech  which  he  made  against  the  Corn  Law  when  the 
Corn  Law  was  passing  through  Parliament  in  1815 ;  and 
we  owe  much  to  his  exertions  in  connexion  with  that 
question,  for  almost  the  whole  Liberal — I  suppose  the 
whole  Liberal — Party  of  the  Irish  representatives  in 
Parliament  supported  the  measure  of  free  trade  of 
which  we  were  the  prominent  advocates ;  and  I 
know  of  nothing  that  was  favourable  to  freedom, 
whether  in  connexion  with  Ireland  or  England,  that 
O'Connell  did  not  support  with  all  his  great  powers. 

On  another  occasion  he  also  recalled  reminiscences 
of  O'Connell.     He  said  : 

I  asked  him  on  one  occasion  if  he  would  write  me 
an  autograph  for  a  lady,  a  relative  of  mine,  who  wished 
to  preserve  it.  He  went  into  the  lobby,  and,  taking  a 
pen,  wrote  these  four  lines  : 

52 


IRELAND 

Within  that  land  was  many  a  malcontent, 
Who  cursed  the  tyranny  to  which  he  bent ; 
That  land  full  many  a  wringing  despot  saw 
Who  worked  his  tyranny  in  form  of  law. 

Bright  was  once  told  that  he  did  not  know  much 
about  Ireland.     He  answered  triumphantly  : 

I  am  told  that  I  have  not  been  much  in  Ireland, 
and  do  not  know  much  of  it.  I  recollect  a  man  in 
England  during  the  American  War  asking  me  a  question 
about  America.  When  I  gave  him  an  answer  which 
did  not  agree  with  his  opinion,  he  said,  '  I  think  you 
have  never  been  in  America,  have  you  ?  '  I  said  I  had 
not ;  and  he  replied,  '  Well,  I  have  been  there  three 
times,  and  I  know  something  of  them.'  He  was  asking 
me  whether  I  thought  the  Yankees  would  pay  when 
they  borrowed  money  to  carry  on  the  war  ;  and  I 
thought  they  would.  But,  as  he  had  been  there,  he 
thought  his  opinion  was  worth  more  than  mine.  I 
told  him  I  knew  several  people  who  had  lived  in  England 
all  their  lives,  and  yet  knew  very  little  about  England. 
I  am  told  that  if  I  were  to  live  in  Ireland  amongst  the 
people  I  should  have  a  different  opinion ;  that  I 
should  think  the  State  Church  of  a  small  minority  was 
honest,  in  the  face  of  the  great  Church  of  the  majority  ; 
that  I  should  think  it  was  not  the  fault  of  the  land- 
owners or  of  the  law  in  any  degree,  but  the  fault  of 
the  tenants,  that  everything  went  wrong  with  regard 
to  the  land ;  and  that  I  should  find  that  it  was  the 
Government  that  was  mostly  right,  and  the  legislation 
right,  and  that  it  was  the  people  that  were  mostly 
wrong.  There  are  certain  questions  with  regard  to 
any  country  that  you  may  settle  in  your  own  house, 
never  having  seen  that  country  even  upon  a  map. 
This  you  may  settle,  that  what  is  just  is  just  everywhere, 
and  that  men,  from  those  of  the  highest  culture  even 
to  those  of  the  most  moderate  capacity,  whatever  may 

53 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

be  their  race,  whatever  their  colour,  have  implanted 
in  their  hearts  by  their  Creator,  wiser  much  than  my 
critics,  the  knowledge  and  the  love  of  justice.  I  will 
tell  you  that  since  the  day  when  I  sat  beside  O'Connell 
— and  at  an  earlier  day — I  have  considered  this  question 
of  Ireland.  In  1849  for  several  weeks  in  the  autumn, 
and  for  several  weeks  in  the  autumn  of  1852,  I  came 
to  Ireland  expressly  to  examine  this  question  by  con- 
sulting with  all  classes  of  the  people  in  every  part  of  the 
island.  I  will  undertake  to  say  that  I  believe  there  is 
no  man  in  England  who  has  more  fully  studied  the 
evidence  given  before  the  celebrated  Devon  Commission 
in  regard  to  Ireland  than  I  have.  Therefore  I  dare 
stand  up  before  any  Irishman  or  Englishman  to  discuss 
the  Irish  Question. 

From  the  time  that  Bright  entered  Parliament  until 
the  year  1868  there  was  no  attempt  at  statesmanship 
in  the  English  government  of  Ireland.  Peel  was  Prime 
Minister  when  Bright  became  member  for  Durham. 
Ireland  was  agitated  by  the  Repeal  movement.  Peel 
adopted  a  policy  of  sops ;  inter  alia,  he  increased  the 
grant  to  Maynooth  originally  given  by  the  Irish 
Parliament  in  1795.  Bright  opposed  the  measure.  He 
said  in  effect  that  it  was  trifling  with  the  issue.  Irish 
discontent  could  not  be  removed  by  adding  to  the 
endowment  of  a  college  for  the  education  of  the 
Catholic  priesthood.  More  drastic  remedies  were 
needed.  What  the  Irish  people  wanted  was  the  dis- 
establishment of  the  English  State  Church  in  Ireland 
and  the  reform  of  the  Land  system  by  the  creation  of 
a  farmer  proprietary.  Bright  felt  no  hostility  to  the 
Catholic  Church  in  Ireland.  He  was  out  of  sympathy, 
as  he  said,  with  '  the  doctrines  of  Rome.'     But  it 

54 


IRELAND 

seems  to  me  that  he  was  always  in  sympathy  with 
Irish  CathoUcs,  lay  and  clerical,  and  for  this  reason  : 
because  in  Ireland  the  Catholic  Church  was  the 
National  Church,  and  it  was  supported  by  voluntary 
contributions.     He  once  said  : 

No  greater  instance  of  generosity  and  fidelity  to 
their  Church  can  be  seen  in  the  world  than  that  which 
has  been  manifested  by  the  Catholic  people  of 
Ireland. 

But  he  objected  to  the  grant  to  Maynooth  (apart 
from  his  general  disapproval  of  State  endowments  for 
religion)  because  (to  use  an  expression  of  D' Arcy  McGee) 
it  was  '  tinkering  with  the  old  tin  kettle.'  In  a  passage 
which  showed  his  knowledge  of  Ireland,  his  statesman- 
ship, and  his  contempt  for  Peel's  miserable  makeshifts, 
he  said  : 

The  object  of  this  Bill  is  to  tone  down  those  agitators 
— it  is  a  sop  given  to  the  priests.    It  is  hush-money  given 
that  they  may  not  proclaim  to  the  whole  country,  to 
Europe,  and  to  the  world  the  sufferings  of  the  popu- 
lation to  whom  they  administer  the  rites  and  the 
consolations  of  religion.     I  assert  that  the  Protestant 
Church  of  Ireland  is  at  the  root  of  the  evils  of  that 
country.      The     Irish     Catholics    would    thank    you 
infinitely  more  if  you  were  to  wipe  out  that  foul  blot 
than  they  would  even  if  Parliament  were  to  establish 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  alongside  of  it.     They 
have  had  everything  Protestant — a  Protestant  clique 
which  has  been  dominant  in  the  country  ;  a  Protestant 
Viceroy  to  distribute  places  and  emoluments  amongst 
that  Protestant  clique  ;  Protestant  judges  who  have 
polluted  the  seats  of  justice  ;    Protestant  magistrates 
before  whom  the  Catholic  peasant  could  not  hope  for 

55 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

justice.  They  have  not  only  Protestant  but  exter- 
minating landlords,  and,  more  than  that,  a  Protestant 
soldiery,  who  at  the  beck  and  command  of  a  Protestant 
priest  have  butchered  and  killed  a  Catholic  peasant, 
even  in  the  presence  of  his  widowed  mother.  AH  these 
things  are  notorious  ;  I  merely  state  them.  I  do  not 
bring  the  proof  of  them ;  they  are  patent  to  all  the 
world,  and  that  man  must  have  been  unobservant 
indeed  who  is  not  perfectly  convinced  of  their  truth. 
The  consequence  of  all  this  is  the  extreme  discontent 
of  the  Irish  people  ;  and  because  this  House  is  not 
prepared  yet  to  take  those  measures  which  would  be 
really  doing  justice  to  Ireland,  and  to  wipe  away  that 
Protestant  Establishment  which  is  the  most  disgraceful 
institution  in  Christendom,  the  next  thing  is  that 
they  should  drive  off  the  watch-dogs,  if  it  be  possible, 
and  take  from  Mr.  OXonnell  and  the  Repeal  Association 
that  formidable  organisation  which  has  been  established 
throughout  the  whole  country,  through  the  sympathies 
of  the  Catholic  priests  being  bound  up  with  the  interests 
of  the  people.  Their  object  is  to  take  away  the 
sympathy  of  the  Catholic  priests  from  the  people,  and 
to  give  them  more  Latin  and  Greek.  The  object  is 
to  make  the  priests  in  Ireland  as  tame  as  those  of 
Suffolk  and  Dorsetshire.  The  object  is  that  when  the 
horizon  is  brightened  every  night  with  incendiary 
fires,  no  priest  of  the  paid  Establishment  shall  ever  tell 
of  the  wrongs  of  the  people  amongst  whom  he  is  living ; 
and  when  the  population  is  starving,  and  pauperised 
by  thousands,  as  in  the  southern  parts  of  England,  the 
priests  shall  not  unite  themselves  with  any  association 
for  the  purpose  of  wresting  from  an  oppressive  Govern- 
ment those  rights  to  which  the  people  have  a  claim. 

1847  was  a  year  of  famine.  Evictions  followed  in 
the  wake  of  famine,  agrarian  outrages  followed  evic- 
tions.   Coercion  was  the  remedy  of  the  Government,  and 

56 


IRELAND 

in  December  a '  Crime  and  Outrage'  Bill  was  introduced. 
Bright  did  not  oppose  the  Bill.  He  always  took  the 
line — and  indeed  once  reminded  me  of  the  fact — that 
as  the  executive  were  responsible  for  law  and  order, 
their  demand  for  exceptional  legislation  could  not  be 
denied.  But  he  held  in  1847  and  throughout  his  life 
that  '  force  was  no  remedy.' 

In  1848  and  1849  there  were  more  Irish  debates, 
more  contemptible  and  imbecile  proposals  for  dealing 
with  the  discontent  and  calamities  of  the  country.  But 
Bright  alone,  among  the  English  statesmen  of  the 
period,  went  to  the  root  of  the  question  and  pointed  out 
the  way  of  remedial  legislation.  *  Disestablish  the 
Church,  reform  the  Land  laws,'  he  cried  out  again  and 
again,  but  always  in  vain.  In  1849  ^^  Ulster  land- 
lord (Mr.  Bateson)  said  that  the  Government  of 
Lord  John  Russell  was  to  blame  for  the  misfortunes 
of  Ireland.  He  brought  upon  himself  a  crushing 
retort.     Bright  said  : 

The  hon.  member  has  charged  the  Government 
with  having  caused  the  calamities  of  Ireland.  Now,  if 
I  were  the  hon.  member,  I  would  not  have  opened  up 
that  question.  My  opinion  is  that  the  course  which 
Parliament  has  taken  with  respect  to  Ireland  for 
upwards  of  a  century,  and  especially  since  the  Union, 
has  been  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  pro- 
prietors of  the  land  of  that  country.  If,  therefore, 
there  has  been  misgovernment  in  Ireland  during  that 
period,  it  is  the  land  which  has  influenced  Parliament, 
and  the  landowners  are  responsible.  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  the  House  of  Commons  is  not  responsible 
for  taking  the  evil  advice  which  the  landowners  of 
Ireland  have  proffered,  but  what  I  mean  to  assert  is : 

57 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

this  advice  has  been  almost  invariably  acted  upon  by 
the  Government.  This  it  is  which  has  proved  fatal  to 
the  interests  of  Ireland ;  the  Ulster  men  have  stood 
in  the  way  of  improvements  in  the  Franchise,  in  the 
Church,  and  in  the  Land  Question ;  they  have  purchased 
Protestant  ascendancy,  and  the  price  paid  for  it  is  the 
ruin  and  degradation  of  their  country. 

Nor  did  he  spare  Ministers — even  Liberal  Ministers 
— themselves.  In  the  same  speech,  pointing  to  the 
Treasury  Bench,  he  said : 

But  the  treatment  of  this  Irish  malady  remains 
ever  the  same.  We  have  nothing  for  it  still  but  force 
and  alms.  You  have  an  armed  force  there  of  50,000 
men  to  keep  the  people  quiet,  large  votes  are  annually 
required  to  keep  the  people  quiet,  and  large  votes  are 
annually  required  to  keep  the  people  alive.  I  presume 
the  government  by  troops  is  easy,  and  that  the 

Civil  power  may  snore  at  ease 

While  soldiers  fire — to  keep  the  peace. 

But  the  noble  lord  at  the  head  of  the  Government 
has  no  policy  to  propose  for  Ireland.  If  he  had,  he 
would  have  told  us  what  it  is  before  now. 

The  peroration  of  this  speech  must  have  been  a  bitter 
draught  to  the  English  House  of  Commons.  Indeed, 
it  needed  no  ordinary  courage  for  an  Englishman  to 
tell  the  home  truths  which  Bright  then  uttered.  But 
he  spared  not  his  audience. 

Sir,  I  am  ashamed,  I  must  say,  of  the  course  which 
we  have  taken  upon  this  question.  Look  at  that 
great  subscription  that  was  raised  three  years  ago 
for  Ireland.  There  was  scarcely  a  part  of  the  globe 
from  which  subscriptions  did  not  come.     The  Pope,  as 

58 


IRELAND 

was  very  natural,  subscribed ;  the  head  of  the  great 
Mahomedan    empke,    the    Grand    Seignior,    sent   his 
thousand  pounds  ;  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth 
sent  in  their  donations.    A  tribe  of  Red  Indians  on  the 
American  continent  sent  their  subscription  ;    and  I 
have  it  on  good  authority  that  even  the  slaves  on  a 
plantation  in  one  of  the  Carolinas  subscribed  their 
sorrowful  mite  that  the  miseries  of  Ireland  might  be 
relieved.     The  whole  world  looked  upon  the  condition 
of  Ireland  and  helped  to  mitigate  her  miseries.     What 
can  we  say  to  all  those  contributors  who,  now  that 
they  have  paid,  must  be  anxious  to  know  if  anything 
is  done  to  prevent  a  recurrence  of  these  calamities  ? 
We  must  tell  them  with  blushes  that  nothing  has  been 
done,  but  that  we  are  still  going  on  with  the  poor-rates, 
and  that,  having  exhausted  the  patience  of  the  people 
of  England  in  Parliamentary  grants,  we  are  coming 
now  with  rates  in   aid,   restricted   altogether  to   the 
property  of  Ireland.     That  is  what  we  have  to  tell 
them ;     whilst    we   have    to    acknowledge    that    our 
Constitution,  boasted  of  as  it  has  been  for  generations 
past,  utterly  fails  to  grapple  with  this  great  question. 
Hon.  gentlemen  turn  with  triumph  to  neighbouring 
countries  and  speak  in  glowing  terms  of  our  glorious 
Constitution.     It   is   true   that   abroad   thrones   and 
dynasties  have  been  overturned,  whilst   in   England 
peace   has   reigned   undisturbed.     But    take    all   the 
lives  that  have  been  lost  in  the  last  twelve  months  in 
Europe  amidst  the  convulsions  that  have  occurred — 
take  all  the  cessation   of  trade,   the  destruction  of 
industry,  all  the  crushing  of  hopes  and  hearts,  and 
they  will  not  compare  for  an  instant  with  the  agonies 
which  have  been  endured  by  the  population  of  Ireland 
under    your    glorious    Constitution.     And   there    are 
those  who  now  say  that  this  is  the  ordering  of  Pro- 
vidence.    I  met  an  Irish  gentleman  th^  other  night, 
and,  speaking  upon  the  subject,  he  said  that  he  saw 

59 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

no  remedy,  but  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  present  state  of 
things  were  the  mode  by  which  Providence  intended 
to  solve  the  question  of  Irish  diihculties.  But  let  us 
not  lay  these  calamities  at  the  door  of  Providence ;  it 
were  sinful  in  us,  of  all  men,  to  do  so.  God  has  blessed 
Ireland — and  does  still  bless  her — in  position,  in  soil, 
in  climate  ;  He  has  not  withdrawn  His  promises,  nor 
are  they  imfulfilled  ;  there  is  still  the  sunshine  and 
the  shower ;  still  the  seed-time  and  the  harvest ;  and 
the  affluent  bosom  of  the  earth  yet  offers  sustenance 
for  man.  But  man  must  do  his  part — we  must  do 
our  part — we  must  retrace  our  steps — we  must  shun 
the  blunders,  and  I  would  even  say  the  crimes,  of 
our  past  legislation.  We  must  free  the  land,  and 
then  we  shall  discover,  and  not  till  then,  that  industry 
hopeful  and  remunerated — industry  free  and  inviolate 
— is  the  only  sure  foundation  on  which  can  be  reared 
the  enduring  edifice  of  union  and  of  peace. 

In  a  long  and  detailed  account  of  a  journey  in 
Ireland  in  1849  he  wrote  to  a  friend : 

We  left  Cork  by  coach  for  Skibbereen — the  famous 
Skibbereen — and  we  found  the  details  of  its  afflictions 
not  exaggerated.  We  visited  the  workhouse ;  2600 
persons  in  the  principal  and  the  additional  buildings. 
As  many  as  105  persons  have  died  in  a  week  in  this 
place  during  the  fever  and  cholera  visitation.  Behind 
the  workhouse  is  a  small  piece  of  land  fenced  off  from 
a  field,  not  more  than  a  quarter  of  an  acre — in  trenches 
in  this  space  are  buried  600  victims  of  famine  and  fever 
and  cholera,  buried  in  the  rags  they  died  in,  '  uncoffined 
and  unknown.'  The  green  corn  now  waves  over  them. 
It  is  a  melancholy  spot.  We  saw  a  girl  trying  to  sell  a 
basket  of  turf  in  the  market  place.  It  weighed  62  lb. 
She  had  carried  it  on  her  back  8J  miles.  It  had  been 
cut  and  dried  previously.    She  asked  i^d.  for  it !  !  ! 

60 


IRELAND 

On  the  road  from  Cork  to  Skibbereen  and  Bantry 
there  are,  I  think,  scores,  perhaps  hundreds,  of  roofless 
and  ruined  cottages — women,  wives  and  mothers,  out 
Hstlessly  and  despairingly  at  their  cabin  doors,  and 
Uttle  children  almost  naked  and  squalid  and  wan, 
afford  testimony  to  the  stricken  condition  of  the 
district. 

Again  in  the  same  year  he  wrote  : 

We  are  to  have  a  Free  Trade  meeting,  when  I 
shall  probably  say  something  about  Ireland.  The  usual 
scenes  of  outrage  and  murder  are  again  being  enacted 
in  that  wretched  country.  If  England  had  no  con- 
nexion with  Ireland,  the  question  of  Irish  maladies 
would  soon  be  settled  in  the  blood  of  its  proprietary 
classes.  .  .  . 

I  am  reading  about  Ireland  and  thinking  about  her 
almost  continually,  and  am  quite  clear  as  to  what  is 
required  for  her ;  but  our  aristocratic  Government 
will  see  the  people  perish  by  thousands  rather  than 
yield  anything  of  their  privileges  or  usurpations. 

And  again: 

I  have  the  Irish  Poor  Law  Committee  to  attend 
three  days  in  the  week.  ...  I  often  feel  quite  dis- 
tressed about  these  miserable  Irish.  They  are  dying 
of  hunger  and  fever  and  cholera,  and  nobody  seems  to 
have  a  notion  of  what  is  to  be  done  to  help  them. 
Grants  of  money  seem  only  to  postpone  their  doom, 
and  their  ruin  seems  inevitable.  There  is  no  other 
country  under  heaven  where  a  like  state  of  things  exists 
unless  it  be  in  Africa,  where  war  and  fire  and  capture  are 
the  fate  of  the  weakest  tribes ;  and  all  this  is  under  our 
glorious  Constitution  in  Church  and  State  ! 

While  Bright  believed  that  the  Church  and  Land 
Questions  were  at  the  root  of  Irish  discontent,  he 

6i 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

persistently  advocated  the  extension  of  the  franchise 
to  the  masses  of  the  people  in  order  that  Ireland  might 
be  fairly,  honestly,  and  effectively  represented  in  the 
English  Parliament.     In  1848  he  said  : 

I  assert  most  distinctly  that  the  representation 
which  exists  at  this  moment  is  a  fraud  ;  and  I  believe 
it  would  be  far  better  if  there  were  no  representation 
at  all,  because  the  people  would  not  then  be  deluded 
by  the  idea  that  they  had  a  representative  Govern- 
ment to  protect  their  interests. 

In  1850  Lord  John  Russell  introduced  a  half- 
hearted Irish  Reform  Bill  proposing  {inter  alia)  an  £8 
rating  franchise  in  counties.  The  Bill,  after  much 
obstruction,  passed  the  Commons,  but  in  the  Lords 
the  proposed  £8  rating  franchise  was  raised  to  £1$, 
When  the  Bill  came  back  to  the  Commons  Lord  John 
Russell  suggested  a  compromise  fixing  the  franchise 
at  £12.  Bright  denounced  the  Prime  Minister  for 
not  standing  to  his  guns.     He  said  : 

This  Bill,  as  it  appears  to  me,  is  the  measure  of  the 
Session.  We  are  about  to  separate  without  any  measure 
of  public  importance  being  passed  besides  this  measure, 
and  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  Government  have  a 
very  sorry  account  to  render  to  the  country  for  the 
time  which  has  been  taken  up  by  Parliament  during 
the  past  six  months.  No  man,  I  presume,  is  of  opinion 
that  the  Government  grappled  with  the  question  of  the 
Irish  representation  before  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
to  do  so.  They  found  the  representation  of  Ireland 
virtually  extinguished.  They  found  eight  millions 
of  people  living  under  a  Constitution  of  which  nobody 
in  this  House  or  in  the  country  boasts  so  much  as  the 
noble  lord  at  the  head  of  the  Government,  and  yet 
having  literally  no  representation  whatever.  .  .  .    The 

62 


IRELAND 

noble  lord  defended  the  £S  franchise  in  this  House  in  a 
manner  which  to  me  was  perfectly  satisfactory.  .  .  . 
We  felt  somewhat  satisfied  that  the  noble  lord  at  least 
meant  to  stand  by  and  to  carry  through  Parliament 
what  he  had  proposed.  How  then,  has  he  acted  ?  The 
noble  lord,  be  it  remembered,  is  at  the  head  of  the 
Government,  and  it  would  not  do  for  him  to  say  that 
he  has  not  voted  as  the  Marquess  of  Lansdowne  has 
in  the  other  House.  Although  I  have  not  the  exact 
words  before  me,  I  believe  I  shall  be  supported  by  the 
recollection  of  hon.  members  when  I  say  that  the 
conduct  of  the  Government  in  the  other  House  has  not 
only  been  directly  contrary  to  its  conduct  in  this  House, 
but  that  it  affords  the  greatest  reason  for  believing 
that  when  the  noble  lord  and  his  colleagues  proposed 
the  £S  franchise  in  this  House  it  was  not  intended 
that  that  franchise  should  be  passed,  but  that  it  should 
be  raised  to  some  other  amount. 

The  ;{i2  franchise  was  finally  accepted  by  both 
Houses. 

Between  1850  and  1868  no  measure  was  placed  on 
the  statute  book  to  give  effect  to  Bright's  Irish  policy. 
The  Church  was  not  disestablished,  the  Land  system 
was  not  reformed,  and  the  Irish  representation  still 
remained  a  '  fraud.'  But  between  1865  and  1870 
Fenianism  forced  the  question  of  Ireland  on  the 
attention  of  the  English  public.  In  1865  there  were 
Irish  State  trials  which  revealed  the  existence  of  a 
widespread  movement  to  overthrow  the  English  power 
in  the  island.  In  April  1866  the  old  famiHar  remedy 
for  Irish  disaffection — the  suspension  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act — was  proposed.  Bright  took  part  in  the 
debate,  and  deUvered  what  I  think  was  not  only  the 
best  speech  he  ever  made  on  Ireland,  but  almost  the 

63 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

best  speech  which  he  ever  made  on  any  subject.  He 
occupied  a  triumphant  position.  For  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  century  (as  he  reminded  the  House)  he  had 
advocated  the  cause  of  Ireland,  but  advocated  it  in 
vain.  He  had  foreseen,  foretold,  forewarned,  but  all 
to  no  purpose.  His  advice  and  his  proposals  were 
fliung  to  the  winds.  He  now,  with  a  courage,  a  dignity, 
and  a  moral  grandeur  which  only  one  of  his  oratorical 
stature  and  splendid  Irish  record  could  assume  in 
the  discussion,  rebuked  English  statesmen  and  the 
English  Parliament,  not  only  for  their  misgovernment  of 
Ireland,  but  for  their  inability  to  understand  the  Irish 
Question.     He  said  : 

I  have  not  risen  to  blame  the  Secretary  of  State  or 
to  blame  his  colleagues  for  the  act  of  to-day.  There 
may  be  circumstances  to  justify  a  proposition  of  this 
kind,  and  I  am  not  here  to  deny  that  these  circumstances 
now  exist ;  but  what  I  complain  of  is  this  :  there  is 
no  statesmanship  merely  in  acts  of  force  and  acts  of 
repression.  And,  more  than  that,  I  have  not  observed 
since  I  have  been  in  Parliament  anything  on  this  Irish 
Question  that  approaches  to  the  dignity  of  statesman- 
ship. There  has  been,  I  admit,  an  improved  adminis- 
tration in  Ireland.  There  have  been  Lord-Lieutenants 
anxious  to  be  just,  and  there  is  one  there  now  who  is 
probably  as  anxious  to  do  justice  as  any  man.  We 
have  observed  generally  in  the  recent  trials  a  better 
tone  and  temper  than  were  ever  witnessed  under  similar 
circumstances  in  Ireland  before.  But  if  I  go  back  to 
the  Ministers  who  have  sat  on  the  Treasury  Bench 
since  I  first  came  into  this  House — Sir  Robert  Peel 
first,  then  Lord  John  Russell,  then  Lord  Aberdeen,  then 
Lord  Derby,  then  Lord  Palmerston,  then  Lord  Derby 
again,  then  Lord  Palmerston  again,   and  now    Earl 

64 


IRELAND 

Russell — I  say  that  with  regard  to  all  these  men,  there 
has  not  been  any  approach  to  anything  that  history 
will  describe  as  statesmanship  on  the  part  of  the 
English  Government  towards  Ireland.  There  were 
Coercion  Bills  in  abundance;  Arms  Bills  Session  after 
Session;  lamentations  like  that  of  the  right  hon. 
gentleman  the  member  for  Buckinghamshire  [Mr. 
Disraeli]  that  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  was  not  made  perpetual  by  a  clause  which  he 
laments  was  repealed.  There  have  been  Acts  for  the 
suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  like  that  which 
we  are  now  discussing  ;  but  there  has  been  no  states- 
manship. Men  the  most  clumsy  and  brutal  can  do 
these  things  ;  but  we  want  men  of  higher  temper, 
men  of  higher  genius,  men  of  higher  patriotism,  to 
deal  with  the  affairs  of  Ireland.  I  should  like  to  know 
whether  those  statesmen  who  hold  great  offices  have 
themselves  comprehended  the  nature  of  this  question. 
If  they  have  not,  they  have  been  manifestly  ignorant ; 
and  if  they  have  comprehended  it  and  have  not  dealt 
with  it,  they  have  concealed  that  which  they  knew 
from  the  people,  and  evaded  the  duty  they  owed  to 
their  sovereign.  I  do  not  want  to  speak  disrespectfully 
of  men  in  office.  It  is  not  my  custom  in  this  House.  I 
know  something  of  the  worrying  labours  to  which  they 
are  subjected,  and  I  know  not  how  from  day  to  day  they 
bear  the  burden  of  the  labour  imposed  upon  them  ; 
but  still  I  lament  that  those  who  wear  the  garb,  enjoy 
the  emoluments,  and  I  had  almost  said  usurp  the 
dignity,  of  statesmanship  sink  themselves  merely  into 
respectable  and  honourable  administrators,  when  there 
is  a  whole  nation  under  the  sovereignty  of  the  Queen 
calling  for  all  their  anxious  thoughts — calling  for  the 
highest  exercise  of  the  highest  qualities  of  the  statesman. 
I  put  the  question  to  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
[Mr.  Gladstone].  He  is  the  only  man  of  this  Govern- 
ment whom  I  have  heard  of  late  years  who  has  spoken 

65 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

as  if  he  comprehended  this  question,  and  he  made  a 
speech  in  the  last  Session  of  Parhament  which  was  not 
without  its  influence  both  in  England  and  in  Ireland. 
I  should  like  to  ask  him  whether  this  Irish  Question  is 
above  the  stature  of  himself  and  of  his  colleagues  ? 
If  it  be,  I  ask  them  to  come  down  from  the  high 
places  which  they  occupy,  and  try  to  learn  the  art  of 
legislation  and  government  before  they  practise  it. 
I  myself  believe,  if  we  could  divest  ourselves  of  the 
feelings  engendered  by  party  strife,  we  might  come  to 
some  better  result.  Take  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  [Mr.  Gladstone].  Is  there  in  any  legislative 
assembly  in  the  world  a  man,  as  the  world  judges,  of 
more  transcendent  capacity  ?  I  will  say  even,  is 
there  a  man  with  a  more  honest  wish  to  do  good  to 
the  country  in  which  he  occupies  so  conspicuous  a 
place  ? 

Take  the  right  hon.  gentleman  opposite,  the  Leader 
of  the  Opposition  [Mr.  Disraeli] — is  there  in  any  legis- 
lative assembly  in  the  world,  at  this  moment,  a  man 
leading  an  Opposition  of  more  genius  for  his  position, 
who  has  given  in  every  way  but  one  in  which  proof 
can  be  given  that  he  is  competent  to  the  highest  duties 
of  the  highest  offices  of  the  State?  Well,  but  these 
men — great  men,  whom  we  on  this  side  and  you  on 
that  side,  to  a  large  extent,  admire  and  follow — fight 
for  office,  and  the  result  is  they  sit  alternately  one  on 
this  side  and  one  on  that. 

But  suppose  it  were  possible  for  these  men,  with 
their  intellects,  with  their  far-reaching  vision,  to 
examine  this  question  thoroughly,  and  to  say  for  once, 
whether  this  leads  to  office  and  to  the  miserable 
notoriety  that  men  call  fame  which  springs  from  office, 
or  not,  '  If  it  be  possible  we  will  act  with  loyalty  to 
the  sovereign  and  justice  to  the  people ;  and  if  it  be 
possible,  we  will  make  Ireland  a  strength  and  not  a 
weakness  to   the   British   Empire.'     It  is  from   this 

66 


IRELAND 

fighting  with  party,  and  for  party,  and  for  the  gains 
which  party  gives,  that  there  is  so  Httle  result  from 
the  great  intellect  of  such  men  as  these.  Like  the 
captive  Samson  of  old, 

They  grind  in  brazen  fetters,  under  task, 
With  their  Heaven-gifted  strength ; 

and  the  country  and  the  world  gain  little  by  those 
faculties  which  God  has  given  them  for  the  blessing 
of  the  country  and  the  world. 

In  1867  a  petition  was  prepared  by  Mr.  Congreve, 
Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  Professor  Beesly,  Dr.  Bridges, 
Mr.  Crompton,  and  other  Positivists,  relating  to  the 
Fenians,  urging  that,  as  political  offenders,  they  should 
be  treated  '  with  as  much  leniency  as  was  consistent 
with  the  preservation  of  order.'  The  petitioners,  while 
disapproving  of  Fenianism,  stated  in  effect  that  the 
Fenian  movement  itself  was  produced  by  English 
misgovernment  in  Ireland.  The  petition  asserted, 
inter  alia,  'that  the  actual  government  of  Ireland  is 
the  government  of  the  conquered  by  the  conqueror,  as 
is  shown  by  the  maintenance,  against  the  undoubted 
wishes  of  the  bulk  of  the  nation,  of  the  Irish  Church 
Establishment,  and  by  the  enforcement  of  a  system  of 
landlords  at  variance  with  the  traditions  and  feelings 
of  the  Irish  people,'  and  added  :  'That  there  is  legi- 
timate ground  for  the  chronic  discontent  of  which 
Fenianism  is  the  expression,  and  therefore  palliation 
for  the  errors  of  Fenianism.' 

The  petitioners,  in  the  first  instance,  asked  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  present  this  petition  to  the  House  of 
Commons,  but  he  refused ;  they  then  asked  Bright, 
who  consented.     I  believe  that  it  was  his  intention 

67  '2 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

originally  merely  to  state  as  briefly  as  possible  what 
the  petition  was  about;  but  finding  that  a  spirit  of 
hostility  to  its  presentation  was  evinced,  he  read  it  from 
beginning  to  end.  He  was  interrupted  several  times, 
but  he  resolutely  held  on  the  even  tenor  of  his  way, 
and  the  Speaker  ruled  the  interruptions  out  of  order. 
Having  come  to  the  end  of  the  petition,  Bright  said 
with  calm  defiance,  *  In  the  general  spirit  of  that 
petition  I  entirely  agree.* 

On  May  3  the  petition  was  allowed  to  lie  on 
the  table,  but  on  June  14  Major  Anson  moved 
'the  discharge  of  the  order  of  the  House  of  May  4.' 
Bright  was  absent  during  the  debate  which  ensued. 
Mr.  Disraeli  (Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer)  took  part  in 
the  discussion,  saying: 

I  think  that  the  expressions  of  opinion  contained 
in  this  petition  are  disapproved  by  the  entire  body  of 
the  House  with  very  rare  exceptions,  and  that  but  few 
coincide  in  the  opinions  which  we  might  have  heard 
to-night  from  an  hon.  member  whom  we  all  greatly 
respect.  But  upon  the  whole,  and  looking  at  all 
the  circumstances,  we  must  consider,  not  whether 
there  may  not  be  some  expressions  of  opinion  in  this 
petition  which  cannot  for  a  moment  be  justified, 
which  are  outrageous  in  sentiment  and  which  are 
erroneous  in  argument,  but  whether  by  the  solemn 
act  of  the  House  of  Commons  rejecting  a  petition 
presented  to  them  by  persons  who,  from  their  educa- 
tion and  social  position,  ought  certainly  to  be  of  a 
respectable  character,  we  shall  not  appear  to  sanction 
the  idea  that  we  are  endeavouring  to  suppress  opinions 
of  which  we  do  not  approve. 

Major  Anson's  motion  was  then  rejected. 

68 


IRELAND 

Six  months  afterwards  Bright  delivered,  at  Roch- 
dale, one  of  those  vigorous,  not  to  say  violent,  speeches 
on  Ireland  which  so  frequently  shocked  orthodox 
Whigs  and  Tories  alike.     In  this  speech  he  said  : 

I  entirely  disagree  with  those  who,  when  any  crisis  or 
trouble  arises  in  Ireland,  say  that  you  must  first  of  all 
preserve  order — you  must  put  down  all  disloyalty  and 
disobedience  to  the  law,  you  must  assert  the  supremacy 
of  the  Government,  and  then  consider  the  grievances  that 
are  complained  of.  This  has  been  the  case  in  Ireland 
for  two  hundred  years.  The  great  preserver  there  has 
been  the  gallows.  Now,  twenty  years  ago  many  of  you 
will  recollect  that  in  Ireland,  under  the  guidance  of 
one  of  Ireland's  greatest  sons,  the  late  Mr.  O'Connell, 
there  were  held  in  Ireland  meetings  of  vast  numbers  of 
the  people,  equal  probably  in  number  to  the  meetings 
that  were  held  a  year  ago  in  Birmingham,  Manchester, 
Leeds,  Glasgow,  and  in  London.  Those  meetings  were 
held  to  condemn  certain  things  that  were  evil  in 
Ireland,  to  demand  remedies,  even  to  insist  that  there 
should  be  a  repeal  of  the  legislative  union  between  the 
two  countries,  for  many  thought  that  only  an  Irish 
Parliament  could  abolish  the  miseries  of  Ireland ;  but 
there  is  not  one  of  you  that  can  point  to  any  single 
great  measure  of  justice  which  has  been  given  to 
Ireland  in  consequence  of  these  great  meetings.  The 
grievances  were  not  remedied.  The  demands  of  the 
people  were  not  conceded.  Nothing  has  been  done  in 
Ireland  except  under  the  influence  of  terror. 

In  September  1867  two  Fenian  leaders,  Kelly  and 
Deasy,  were  arrested  in  Manchester.  Their  comrades 
in  the  city  resolved  to  rescue  them.  Accordingly, 
as  the  van  conveying  them  was  on  its  way  from  the 
police  court  to  the  gaol  at  Bellevue,  it  was  attacked. 

69 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

The  prisoners  were  liberated,  and  a  policeman,  Sergeant 
Brett,  was  shot  dead  in  the  struggle.  Three  Fenians 
— Allen,  Larkin,  and  O^Brien  —  were  arrested  for 
killing  Brett,  and  tried,  convicted,  and  hanged  on 
November  23,  1867.  Bright  was  strongly  opposed 
to  the  execution  of  these  men.  It  was  wrong,  he  said 
in  effect,  to  hang  three  men  for  a  deed  which  could  only 
have  been  committed  by  one,  assuming  that  the  right 
man  was  in  custody,  which  he  doubted.^  He  wrote 
two  letters  on  the  subject  to  Mr^  Justin  McCarthy,  who 
was  at  that  time  editor  of  the  Morning  Star : 

Llandudno  :  Nov.  8,  1867. 

Dear  Sir, — I  am  surprised  that  the  leaders  on  the 
Manchester  Fenians  should  so  readily  give  up  Allen 
to  the  gallows — asserting  even  that  he  glories  in  blood- 
shedding. 

The  fact  is  that  he  denies  having  shot  the  poor 
man  Brett ;  and  the  convicts  or  prisoners  say  that  the 
man  who  did  it  is  not  even  in  custody.  Allen's  uncle 
and  aunt  called  on  me  last  Saturday  and  urged  that 
he  was  not  guilty  of  the  murder,  and  that  his  life 
should  not  be  taken  on  the  sort  of  evidence  tendered. 

The  witnesses  are  now  discredited  ;  and  I  think 
you  should  urge  that  to  hang  any  after  the  breakdown 
of  the  evidence  will  be  much  to  be  deplored.  ^ 

I  am  certain  that  to  hang  these  men  will  embitter 
the  whole  Irish  Question.  Allen  is  but  nineteen,  a 
hot,  enthusiastic  youth,  impelled  by  a  passion  for 
nationality,  and  thoughtless  of  the  folly  or  crime  of 
the  conspiracy. 

The   Star    should   not   say  a  word  in  favour   of 

^  Some  one  had  fired  at  the  lock  of  the  door  with  the  intention  of 
forcing  it  and  so  enabling  the  prisoners  to  escape.  Brett  was  inside  the 
van,  and  was  hit  by  the  bullet  and  killed. 

'  See  Fifty  Years  of  Concession  to  Ireland,  vol.  ii.  p.  226,  n. 

70 


IRELAND 

hanging  anybody.     There  are  plenty  of  writers  on  the 
Press  to  do  that. 

In  haste, 

Yours  truly, 

John  Bright. 

Rochdale  :  Dec.  i8,  1867. 

Dear  Sir, — I  am  afraid  you  are  doing  the  '  sensa- 
tional '  very  strongly  about  the  *  outrage.'  People 
will  think  you  are  afraid  of  being  thought  disloyal, 
and  so  write  up  to  the  *  horror  '  of  the  occasion. 

The  Star,  more  than  any  other  London  paper,  has 
a  right  to  look  calmly  on  these  sad  shocking  events. 
They  are  but  the  natural  results  of  all  that  has  gone 
before  in  connexion  with  the  Irish  Question  ;  and  I 
suppose  now,  when  something  of  a  crisis  has  come, 
*  statesmen '  will  begin  to  think  something  will  have 
to  be  done. 

In  Ireland  Government  is  being  dissolved.  Did 
you  see  the  case  before  the  magistrates  where  Mr. 
Sullivan  and  Sir  John  Gray  refused  to  become  Crown 
witnesses  ?  Such  a  character  or  office  is  ruin  to  the 
reputation  in  Ireland.  The  Tory  Government  is 
reaping  the  results  of  Tory  principles. 

Desperate  men  are  coming  to  the  front,  and 
desperate  deeds  are  done.  After  a  certain  amount  of 
exasperation  and  agitation,  certain  men  become  reck- 
less and  cruel  as  devils  ;  and  our  statesmanship  is 
helpless  till  things  come  near  this  point.  I  would  not 
pile  the  *  horrors  '  needlessly,  or  spread  rumours  without 
sufficient  foundation. 

I  am  not  in  the  midst  of  the  '  terror,'  and  perhaps 
see  and  speak  more  calmly  than  I  might  if  in  London. 
Therefore,  forgive  these  hints  if  you  think  them  not 
seasonable. 

Always  sincerely  yours, 

John  Bright. 

71 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

In  1868,  proposals  for  dealing  with  the  Church  and 
Land  Questions  in  one  Act  of  Parliament  were  sub- 
mitted to  Bright,  and  in  acknowledgment  he  wrote  the 
following  remarkable  letter  to  a  friend  in  Ireland : 

Rochdale  :    January  27,  1868. 

My  dear  Sir, — I  have  read  the  '  proposals '  over 
with  great  interest  and  care.  They  are  wide,  and 
embrace  the  whole  Irish  difficulty,  and,  if  adopted,  would 
at  once  apply  a  remedy  to  the  two  branches  of  the 
grand  question.  For  twenty  years  I  have  always 
said  that  the  only  way  to  remedy  the  evils  of  Ireland 
is  by  legislation  on  the  Church  and  land.  But  we  are 
met  still  with  this  obstacle,  even  yet  I  fear  insur- 
mountable, that  the  legislation  must  come  from  and 
through  a  Parliament  which  is  not  Irish,  and  in  which 
every  principle  essential  for  the  regeneration  of  Ireland 
is  repudiated.  The  knowledge  of  this  makes  me 
hesitate  as  to  the  wisdom  of  your  *  proposals  '  in  their 
present  shape.  I  fear  the  scheme  is  so  broad,  and  so 
good  and  so  complete  that  Parliament  would  stand 
aghast  at  it.  To  strike  down  an  Established  Church 
and  to  abandon  the  theory  of  our  territorial  system  by 
one  Act  of  Parliament  would  be  too  much  for  Parlia- 
ment, and  would  destroy  any  Government  that  sug- 
gested it.  I  can  conceive  a  condition  of  things  in 
Ireland  under  which  such  a  great  change  might  be 
accomplished — if  Ireland  were  united  in  demanding  it, 
and  were  menacing  Great  Britain  if  it  should  be 
refused  ;  but  now  I  suspect  our  rulers,  though  uncom- 
fortable, are  not  sufficiently  alarmed  to  yield.  The 
Tories  cannot  deal  with  Ireland.  Their  concession  on 
Reform  does  not  lead  me  to  think  they  can  give  in  on 
Irish  affairs.  The  Whigs  are  almost  as  much  afraid 
as  the  Tories  are  of  questions  affecting  the  Church 
and  the  land,  and  they  seem  to  have  almost  no  courage. 

Lord  RusseU  is  old,  and  cannot   grapple  with  a 

72 


IRELAND 

great  question  like  this.  Mr.  Gladstone  hesitates, 
and  hardly  knows  how  far  to  go.  The  material  of  his 
forces  is  not  good,  and  I  suspect  he  has  not  studied 
the  Land  Question,  and  knows  little  about  it.  The 
English  people  are  in  complete  ignorance  of  Irish 
wrongs,  and  know  little  or  nothing  of  the  real  condition 
of  your  country.  This  is  a  sad  picture  ;  but  it  is  not 
coloured  too  darkly.  There  is  no  necessary  connexion 
between  the  Church  and  the  land.  To  make  a  farmer 
proprietary  would  not  involve  the  Government  in  any 
permanent  expense,  and  it  may  be  done  without 
touching  the  Church  Question ;  and  this,  again,  may 
be  dealt  with  without  meddling  with  the  land.  Now, 
the  two  schemes  together  and  in  one  are  a  grand  idea — 
perhaps  too  grand  for  so  slow  a  nation  and  Parliament 
as  ours.  Many  persons  may  be  willing  to  get  rid  of 
the  Church  who  are  unwilling  to  depart  from  present 
theories  with  regard  to  the  land,  and  some  may  go 
with  you  on  the  land  and  hold  back  on  the  Church.  Is 
it  supposed  that  for  the  whole  scheme  you  can  secure 
a  larger  support  than  for  either  of  the  two  branches 
of  it  separately  ?  This  is  the  question  you  must  answer. 
For  myself,  I  should  have  no  hesitation  if  I  could  per- 
suade myself  that  others  in  sufficient  numbers  would 
follow  ;  and,  whether  they  follow  or  not,  I  am  ready 
to  state  my  general  approval  of  your  great  plan, 
should  it  be  brought  before  the  public.  If  all  the 
Liberal  Protestants  and  all  the  Catholic  population 
in  Ireland  will  unite  to  support  you,  some  impression 
may  be  made  on  English  opinion  and  upon  Parliament ; 
but,  looking  to  all  past  efforts  among  you,  I  am  not 
very  sanguine  that  you  will  succeed  in  bringing  a 
strong  and  united  pressure  to  bear  upon  our  ruling 
class.  I  am  expected  to  speak  to-morrow  week  at 
Birmingham,  and  I  intend  to  speak  on  Ireland.  I  am 
free  from  the  trammels  which  fetter  Mr.  Gladstone, 
and  I  can  speak  without  reserve  and  without  fear. 

73 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

What  I  shall  say  will  not  increase  your  difficulties, 
but  will,  I  trust,  rather  smooth  your  path  with  regard 
to  English  opinion.  The  Liberal  Party  is  not  in  a 
good  position  for  undertaking  any  great  measure  of 
statesmanship.  Some  Whigs  distrust  Mr.  Gladstone, 
and  some,  who  call  themselves  Radicals,  dislike  him. 
He  does  not  feel  himself  very  secure  as  leader  of  a 
powerful  and  compact  force.  The  Whig  peers  are 
generally  feeble  and  timid,  and  shrink  from  anything 
out  of  the  usual  course.  We  want  a  strong  man  with  a 
strong  brain  and  convictions  for  a  work  of  this  kind, 
and  I  do  not  see  him  among  our  public  men.  I  hope 
all  that  is  wise  and  good  in  Ireland  may  support  you, 
and  that  you  may  soon  affect  the  opinion  and  conduct 
of  Parliament. 

I  am,  very  sincerely  yours, 

John  Bright. 


However,  despite  Bright' s  doubts,  Mr.  Gladstone 
did  ultimately,  under  the  pressure  of  Fenianism,  rise 
to  the  occasion.  In  1869  his  Government  disestab- 
lished and  partly  disendowed  the  English  State  Church 
in  Ireland,  and  in  1870  passed  an  important  measure 
of  Land  Reform  giving  to  evicted  tenants  compensation 
for  improvements,  and  in  certain  cases  for  disturbance, 
and  containing  clauses — they  were  called  the  Bright 
clauses — for  the  creation  of  a  farmer  proprietary.  But 
the  Land  Act  of  1870  was  not  a  success.  Unjust 
evictions  still  went  on,  and  the  machinery  for  working 
the  Bright  clauses  was  not  effective.  In  1877  there 
was  renewed  agitation  in  Ireland,  and  in  1881  another 
Land  Act  was  placed  on  the  statute  book.  It  established 
a  tribunal  to  stand  between  landlord  and  tenant,  and 
to  fix  fair  or  judicial  rents  ;  the  measure  also  contained 

74 


IRELAND 

clauses  for  further  facilitating  the  purchase  of  their 
holdings  by  tenants  from  landlords  willing  to  sell. 
Mr.  Gladstone  believed  that  the  Irish  Land  Question 
could  be  settled  by  the  readjustment  of  the  relations 
between  landlord  and  tenant.  It  was  the  opinion  of 
Bright,  twenty  years  before  Mr.  Gladstone  had  touched 
the  subject,  that  it  could  only  be  settled  by  the  creation 
of  a  '  farmer  proprietary. '  Time  has  j  ustified  the  opinion 
of  Bright,  and  to-day  both  Liberals  and  Tories  are 
vying  with  each  other  in  passing  Acts  of  Parliament 
to  carry  out  his  policy.  The  farmers  of  Ireland  are 
steadily  becoming  the  owners  of  the  land  they  cultivate. 
In  the  debate  on  the  second  reading  of  the  Bill  of  1881, 
Bright  said  : 

To  the  complaint  that  the  Bill  gives  so  much  to 
the  tenants  and  takes  it  all  from  the  landlords,  I  should 
make  this  answer  :  If  at  this  moment  all  that  has  been 
done  by  the  tenant  in  Ireland  were  gone ;  imagine 
that — if  all  that  the  tenants  have  done  were  gone, 
and  all  that  the  owners  have  done  left — that  is  the 
picture,  the  sort  of  map  I  should  very  much  like  to 
see ;  it  would  be  charming  ;  it  would  finish  this  debate 
in  five  minutes  if  this  map  were  drawn  ;  then,  over  nine- 
tenths  of  Ireland  the  land  would  be  as  bare  of  houses,  of 
barns,  of  fences,  and  of  cultivation  as  it  was  in  pre- 
historic times.  It  would  be  as  bare  as  an  American 
prairie  where  the  Indian  now  roams,  and  where  the 
foot  of  the  white  man  has  never  yet  trodden. 

In  1884  an  Irish  Reform  Bill,  which  at  length  gave 
the  Irish  people  a  fair  representation  in  the  English 
Parliament,  became  law.  Between  1885  and  the 
present  time  no  fewer  than  six  Acts  have  been  placed 
on  the  statute  book  for  the  purpose   of  creating  a 

75 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

farmer  proprietary  in  Ireland.  Thus  were  Bright' s 
plans  for  the  amelioration  of  Ireland  brought  to  fruition. 

I  have  quoted  freely  from  Bright 's  speeches,  though 
as  a  rule  speeches  are  valueless  to  the  biographer. 
Perhaps  the  case  of  Bright  is  the  one  exception. 
'  My  father's  life/  said  one  of  Bright's  children  to 
me,  '  is  in  his  speeches.'  It  is  quite  true.  I  have 
heard  him  speak,  and  his  speeches  have  been  my 
companions  for  many  years  ;  and  as  I  read  them  I 
think  I  can  see  him  standing  at  the  table  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  calm,  dignified,  titanic — a  pillar 
of  strength.  In  the  House,  on  the  platform,  and  even 
in  his  published  addresses,  Bright  gives  you  that  idea 
of  suppressed  energy  which  I  once  heard  Isaac  Butt 
say  was  the  very  essence  of  the  orator's  art — if 
indeed,  in  Bright's  case,  it  was  not  rather  the  nature 
of  the  man  than  the  art  of  the  orator. 

So  far  I  have  dealt  with  Bright's  Irish  policy  from 
1843  to  1884.  I  now  turn  to  his  position  on  the 
question  of  Home  Rule. 


76 


CHAPTER  V 

IRELAND 

Part  II.— Home  Rule 

Between  1843  and  1881  the  relations  between  Bright 
and  Irish  popular  parties  in  the  English  House  of 
Commons  were  friendly  and  even  cordial.  No  Irish 
member  was  in  advance  of  him  on  the  questions  of 
Disestablishment,  Land  Reform,  and  the  Franchise. 
For  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  Irish  people 
found  in  him  a  courageous  and  unfaltering  champion. 
In  1 88 1  there  was  for  the  first  time  an  interruption  of 
the  sympathetic  relations  which  had  so  long  existed 
between  the  Irish  members  and  the  English  Tribune. 
This  interruption  was  caused  by  Bright' s  speech  in 
support  of  Mr.  Forster's  Coercion  Bill  in  1881.  Sitting 
under  the  gallery  I  heard  it.  It  was  a  bitter  draught 
to  me.  However,  I  remained  to  the  end  in  the  hope 
that  perhaps  some  words  of  comfort  might  finally  fall 
from  him,  but  I  was  disappointed.  Going  into  the 
lobby  when  Bright  had  sat  down,  I  met  an  old  friend — 
an  Irish  priest — and  told  him  about  the  speech.  He 
said,  *  Well,  what  did  you  expect  ?  *   I  replied,  '  Well,  if 

77 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

he  found  himself  obUged  to  support  the  Government, 
why  shouldn't  he  do  what  Chamberlain  has  done  and 
hold  his  tongue  ?  ' 

Priest.  *  Because  he  is  not  Chamberlain.  It  is 
only  characteristic  of  him  that  he  should  openly 
stand  by  his  colleagues  and  speak  in  favour  of  the 
Bill  if  he  thinks  it  necessary.* 

I  said,  *  Well,  it  he  thinks  it  necessary  to  speak, 
why  should  he  not  have  made  a  moderate  speech 
instead  of  striking  out  from  the  shoulder  as  he  has 
done  ?  * 

Priest.  '  Did  you  ever  know  Bright  to  make  a 
speech  without  striking  out  from  the  shoulder  ? 
Remember  what  Bentinck  said  of  him,  ''If  he  hadn't 
been  a  Quaker,  he  would  have  been  a  prize-fighter." 
For  over  twenty  years  he  has  been  striking  out 
from  the  shoulder  in  our  favour.  Are  we  to  throw 
him  over  because  he  now  strikes  out  against  us  ? 
I  believe  he  is  as  much  with  us  now  as  ever  he  was. 
I  suppose  he  thinks  that  this  wretched  Coercion  Bill 
is  necessary  to  satisfy  English  public  opinion  in  order 
to  get  through  a  real  strong  Land  Bill.'^ 

Subsequently  (in  1884)  I  discussed  the  speech  with 
Bright  himself.  I  said,  'I  heard  your  speech  in 
support  of  [Mr.  Forster's]  Coercion  Bill,  and  I  didn't 
like  it.' 

Mr.  Bright  (with  a  smile,  and  stroking  his  chin  with 
his  finger).  '  I  daresay  you  didn't.  What  would  you 
have  ?      Remember,  I  voted  for  coercion  before.     The 

^  This  was  the  last  conversation  I  had  with  my  friend.  Next  day 
he  underwent  an  operation,  from  the  effects  of  which  he  died  in  a  few 
days. 

78 


IRELAND 

positix)n  I  have  always  taken  has  been  that  you  cannot 
resist  the  demand  of  the  Minister  who  is  responsible 
for  the  administration  in  Ireland,  though  you  may  say, 
as  I  have  certainly  said,  that  other  remedies  must  be 
applied/ 

I  said,   '  The  Minister  in  this  case  was  wrong/ 

Bright.  '  Well,  yes '  (getting  up  and  throwing 
some  coal  on  the  fire  and  then  turning  his  back  to  it, 
looking  withal  a  noble  figure,  as  he  there  stood  with 
leonine  head,  venerable  grey  hair,  and  dignified  bear- 
ing). '  The  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,'  he 
continued,  '  had  been  successful  in  the  case  of  the 
Fenians  ;  we  supposed  it  would  be  successful  in  the 
case  of  the  Land  League.  That  was  the  mistake.  The 
League  was  a  bigger  organisation.  It  extended  all  over 
the  country.  The  arrest  of  the  leaders  did  not  affect 
it :  the  local  branches  were  too  well  organised.  For 
every  man  who  was  arrested  there  was  another  ready  to 
take  his  place.  Our  information  was  wrong.  The 
conspiracy  was  more  widespread  and  more  deeply 
rooted  than  we  were  led  to  suppose.  It  was  not  a  case 
for  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.' 

I  said,  '  The  policy  was  inexcusable.' 

Bright.  '  To  be  fair  you  must  consider  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  the  policy  was  adopted.  Put 
yourself  in  the  place  of  a  Cabinet  Minister.  Suppose 
the  Lord-Lieutenant  and  Chief  Secretary — the  men, 
mark,  who  are  responsible  for  the  government  of  the 
country,  the  executive — suppose  they  tell  you  that 
they  will  resign  unless  you  give  them  the  powers  they 
demand,  what  would  you  say  ?  ' 

I  made  no  reply. 

79 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Bright.  '  You  don*t  answer,  but  what  you  feel 
inclined  to  say  is,  ''  Let  them  resign  !  "  ' 

I  said,  '  Exactly/ 

Bright.  '  If  you  say  that,  it  shows  that  you 
cannot  put  yourself  in  the  place  of  a  Cabinet  Minister. 
Resignations  are  very  serious  things  for  a  Government. 
They  are  not  to  be  lightly  accepted.  There  is  another 
point.  Suppose  you  could  not  get  any  one  to  fill  their 
places.  I  do  not  say  it  was  so  ;  it  did  not  come  to 
that.  I  put  the  case.  No;  I  admit  the  policy  was 
a  failure,  or,  at  least,  not  as  successful  as  we  antici- 
pated it  would  be.  But  under  the  circumstances,  in 
face  of  the  representations  of  the  Irish  Government, 
it  was  impossible  to  avoid  trying  it.  Remember,  too, 
that  if  we  had  not  passed  a  Coercion  Act  we  could 
not  have  got  a  good  Land  Bill  through.  That  was 
a  consideration  which  weighed  much  with  me,  and 
I  think  with  all  of  us.' 

However,  the  breach  between  Bright  and  the  Irish 
members  in  1881  was  not  irreparable.  His  speech  on 
coercion  was  forgotten  or  forgiven,  and  when  the  dis- 
cussions on  the  Reform  Bill  of  1884  occurred,  he  once 
more  stood  forth  as  the  champion  of  Ireland. 

During  the  discussion  on  the  Bill  it  was  suggested 
that  the  Irish  representation  should  be  reduced. 
Bright  dealt  with  the  proposal  thus  : 

Ireland  has  a  certain  claim  in  respect  of 
number,  and  the  Chief  Secretary  says  that  that  claim 
may  be  fairly  met  by  ninety-six  or  ninety-seven 
members.  The  Reform  Bill  of  1832  added  five  mem- 
bers to  the  representation  of  Ireland.  Two  of  them 
vanished,  and  Ireland  has  now  103  members.     Have 

80 


IRELAND 

hon.  gentlemen  ever  thought  of  the  Act  of  Union  ? 
I  say  the  Act  of  Union  is  final  with  regard  to  this 
matter.  That  Act  declares  in  one  of  its  clauses  that 
the  Protestant  Church  of  Ireland  is  to  be  united  for 
ever  with  the  Church  of  England.  We  know  what '  for 
ever  '  means  in  such  a  document.  The  Act  of  Union, 
though  it  was  something  like  a  treaty,  was  a  treaty 
made  entirely  on  one  side.  It  was  made  by  Great 
Britain,  the  powerful  nation,  and  offered  to  the  Irish 
nation.  I  wish  the  House  to  answer  me  this  question. 
An  hon.  gentleman  has  spoken  of  the  Irish  Church. 
The  more  powerful  party  to  a  treaty  or  to  an  Act  has 
a  right  to  surrender  anything  which  afterwards  it 
believes  to  be  unjust  to  the  weaker  party.  .  .  . 

Then,  I  say,  there  is  nothing  on  earth  will  ever 
persuade  me,  except  I  see  it  done,  that  this  Imperial 
Parliament,  which  is  representative  of  the  people  of 
Great  Britain,  will  lessen  the  just,  the  Act  of  Union, 
representation  of  Ireland  in  this  House.  The  popula- 
tion of  Ireland,  reduced  as  it  is,  is,  I  believe,  very 
nearly  the  same  as  it  was  when  the  number  of  a 
hundred  members  was  originally  fixed.  Some  hon. 
members  say  that  the  population  of  Ireland  is  diminish- 
ing. It  has  been  diminishing  up  to  the  present  time. 
I  am  not  quite  sure  that  that  diminution  is  to  go  on. 
I  shall  be  disappointed  with  the  operation  of  the  Land 
Act  if  it  does  not,  to  some  extent,  retain  men  upon  their 
farms  and  in  the  country.  For  myself,  I  am  deter- 
mined to  stand  by  the  Act  of  Union.  Nothing  shall 
persuade  me  to  vote  for  any  smaller  number ;  and  if 
by  reason  of  the  separation  of  Ireland  from  Great 
Britain,  the  difficulties  of  intercourse,  and  the  less  power 
they  have  to  influence  Parliament  and  opinion  in  this 
country,  it  be  thought  necessary  by  the  Government 
to  keep  the  representation  as  it  is,  I  shall  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  supporting  it. 

It  was  on  the  question  of  Home  Rule  that  the  final 

8i  « 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

breach  between   Bright  and  the  Irish  members  took 
place. 

In  the  beginning,  Bright,  Uke  the  whole  of  the  Liberal 
Party,  was  against  Home  Rule.  In  1872  he  wrote  to 
The  O'Donoghue,  and  in  1875  to  the  Reverend  Thaddeus 
O'Malley,  publicly  condemning  the  proposal.  Did  his 
views,  like  the  views  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  the  majority 
of  the  Liberal  Party,  undergo  a  change  in  1885  or  in 
1886  ?  In  answering  this  question  I  will  set  forth  a 
conversation  which  I  had  with  him  on  the  subject  at 
the  time.  On  May  10,  1886,  Mr.  Gladstone  moved  the 
second  reading  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill.  Lord  Hartington 
moved  its  rejection,  and  a  debate  which  lasted  until 
June  7  ensued.  In  the  interval  Mr.  Gladstone  tried  to 
win  back  the  dissentient  Liberals.  He  expressed  his 
willingness  to  reconsider  every  detail,  if  only  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Bill  were  affirmed.  '  Vote  for  the  second 
reading,'  he  said  in  effect ;  '  consent  to  the  establish- 
ment of  an  Irish  Parliament  and  an  Irish  Executive  for 
the  management  and  control  of  Irish  affairs,  and  let 
the  details  wait.  The  second  reading  pledges  you 
only  to  an  Irish  Parliament.  Every  other  question 
remains  open.'  As  for  the  Land  Bill,i  introduced 
about   the  same   time,  he  practically  threw  it   over. 

^  On  April  i6  Mr.  Gladstone  introduced  a  Land  Bill,  which  was,  in  fact, 
a  pendant  to  the  Home  Rule  Bill.  The  chief  feature  of  this  measure  was 
a  scheme  for  buying  out  the  Irish  landlords  and  for  creating  a  peasant  pro- 
prietary. The  State  was,  in  the  first  instance,  to  buy  the  land  at  twenty 
years'  purchase  of  the  judicial  rents,  or  at  the  Government  valuation,  and 
then  sell  to  the  tenants,  advancing  the  purchase  money  (which  involved 
the  issue  of  ;^50, 000,000  Consols),  and  giving  them  forty-nine  years  to 
pay  it  back  at  the  rate  of  4  per  cent,  per  annum.  A  Receiver- General 
was  to  be  appointed,  under  British  authority,  to  receive  the  rents  and 
revenues  of  Ireland,  while  this  scheme  was  in  operation. 

82 


IRELAND 

'  While  the  sands  are  running  in  the  hour-glass/  he 
said,  in  an  oft-quoted  sentence,  '  the  Irish  land- 
lords have  as  yet  given  no  intimation  of  a  desire  to 
accept  a  proposal  framed  in  a  spirit  of  the  utmost 
allowable  regard  to  their  apprehensions  and  their 
interests/  If  the  landlords  were  not  prepared  to 
accept  the  Bill  he  would  ask  no  Liberal  to  vote  for  it. 
In  this  shape  he  offered  the  olive-branch  to  his  old 
friends.  Up  to  May  28  Bright  had  taken  no  very 
prominent  part  in  opposition  to  the  Ministerial  policy, 
and  there  were  rumours  afloat  that  he  was  favourable 
to  the  Bill. 

I  was  anxious  to  learn  if  there  was  any  foundation 
for  these  rumours,  and  I  wrote  to  Bright,  asking 
him  to  give  me  an  interview.  He  quickly  sent  the 
following  reply  : 

Reform  Club ;  May  28,  1886. 

I  expect  to  be  here  to-morrow  from  12  to  2,  and  shall 
be  glad  to  see  you,  if  it  be  not  inconvenient  for  you  to 
call  upon  me. 

I  called  at  12.30.  He  was  sitting  in  the  hall  of  the 
Club  talking  to  Lord  Hartington.  I  took  a  place 
opposite  to  them,  and  waited  for  about  an  hour.  At 
the  end  of  that  time  Mr.  Bright  looked  at  his  watch, 
rose,  said  something  (smiling)  to  Lord  Hartington  (who 
went  away)  and  then  walked  across  the  hall  to  me. 

*  Well,'  he  said  pleasantly,  '  I  have  kept  you  wait- 
ing for  an  hour,  but  I  have  been  talking  about  Ireland 
all  the  time.  I  came  to  the  Club  this  morning  at 
10  o'clock,  and  I  have  talked  of  nothing  but  Ireland 
since.     Come,  sit  down.' 

83  G2 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

I  went  straight  to  the  point.  To  talk  to  Bright  and 
not  go  straight  to  the  point  would  be  fatal.  '  I  have 
come,  Mr.  Bright/  I  said,  '  to  ask  if  you  are  in  favour 
of  the  Home  Rule  Bill.' 

He  paused  for  a  moment,  looked  on  the  floor,  then 
raised  his  head  and  answered,  '  I  am  not.  Wait '  (at  a 
motion  of  my  hand) .  '  I  am  against  the  Land  Bill  too ; 
I  am  against  both  Bills.' 

*  I  am  only  interested  in  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  Mr. 
Bright.  May  I  ask  why  you  are  against  it  ?  Are  you 
afraid  that  Home  Rule  would  lead  to  religious  perse- 
cution ?  ' 

'  No  ;  the  fact  is  the  days  of  religious  persecution 
are  gone  by.  You  cannot  have  it  anywhere  now.  We 
are  all  watching  each  other  too  much.  You  know  my 
views  of  the  Irish.  They  are  like  most  other  people — 
neither  better  nor  worse — and  you  are  not  going  to  have 
a  condition  of  things  in  Ireland  which  is  impossible 
anywhere  else.  Moreover,  if  the  Irish  were  disposed 
to  persecute,  they  would  have  to  be  on  their  good 
behaviour,  living  so  near  a  Protestant  country. 
Besides,  the  Protestants  of  Ireland  are  very  well  able  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  I  would  have  more  concern 
for  some  of  the  poor  Catholics.  Remember  that  it  is 
Catholics  and  not  Protestants  who  have  come  under 
the  harrow  of  the  League.'  (A  pause.)  '  I  think, 
though,  that  some  of  these  fellows  [the  Irish  members] 
are  far  too  fond  of  talking  of  Ireland  as  a  Catholic 
nation.  They  do  harm.'  (A  pause,  and  then  a  smile.) 
'  I  expect  that  some  of  these  fellows  who  talk  about 
Ireland  as  a  Catholic  nation  are  precious  bad  Catholics. 
They  remind  me  of  the  Pope's  brass  band,  Keogh  and 

84 


IRELAND 

Sadleir.  I  remember  those  times.  You  don't.  But 
I  have  no  fear  of  a  religious  persecution.' 

'  Then  do  you  think  that  we  would  try  to  separate 
from  England  if  we  got  an  Irish  Parliament  ?  ' 

'  Certainly  not.  How  could  you  ?  Why,  the  thing 
is  madness.  Mark,  there  are  people  in  this  country 
who  would  be  very  glad  if  you  would  try.  That  would 
give  them  an  opportunity  of  settling  the  Irish  Question 
very  quickly.  Just  think  of  our  population  and  of 
yours  ;  then  your  population  is  steadily  diminishing, 
and  ours  always  increasing.  Separation  is  absurd. 
Whether  you  have  a  Parliament  or  not,  you  can  never 
separate.'  (A  pause.)  '  I  do  not  know  that  separation 
would  be  a  bad  thing  if  you  could  separate  far  enough.' 

I  said,  quoting  a  famous  passage  from  one  of  his 
speeches,  '  If  we  could  be  moved  three  thousand 
miles  to  the  westward.'  i 

Bright  (smiling).  '  Just  so.  Many  of  us  would 
be  glad  to  be  rid  of  you  ;  but  we  have  been  thrown 
together  by  Nature,  and  so  we  must  remain.'  (A  pause.) 
'  The  history  of  the  two  countries  is  most  melancholy. 
Here  we  are  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
we  do  not  like  each  other  a  bit  better.  You  are  as 
rebellious  as  ever.  I  sometimes  think  that  you  hate  us 
as  much  as  ever.' 

I  interposed,  '  It  is  a  sad  commentary,  sir,  on  your 
government.' 

*  *  But  if  the  ancient  lines  are  to  be  worked  upon,  and  Ireland  is  to 
be  by  no  means  tranquillised  and  united  to  this  country,  then  I  can 
only  wish — to  use  a  simile  I  once  before  used  in  this  House — that  she 
could  be  unmoored  from  her  fastenings  in  the  deep,  and  moved  three 
thousand  miles  to  the  west.' — House  of  Commons,  March  24,  1884. 

85 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Bright  (warmly).  '  I  know  our  government  has 
been  as  bad  as  a  government  could  be,  but  then  we 
have  done  many  things  during  the  past  fifty  years. 
You  do  not  thank  us  in  the  least.' 

I  said,  '  Because,  as  you  often  pointed  out,  you 
have  only  yielded  to  force.  The  Irish  tenants  do 
not  thank  you  for  the  Land  Act  of  1881.  They 
thank  Mr.  Parnell  and  the  Land  League.  Are  they 
wrong  ?  ' 

Bright.  '  Well,  of  course  I  know  only  too  well 
how  much  truth  there  is  in  what  you  say  about  our 
policy  in  Ireland.  But  you  do  not  recognise  that  there 
is  an  effort  now  being  made  in  this  country  to  do  better 
by  Ireland.  If  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  has  done  so  much 
for  you,  would  only  persevere  on  the  old  lines  instead 
of  taking  this  new  step,  we  would  yet  make  everything 
right  in  Ireland.' 

I  remarked,  '  Well,  sir,  I  am  glad  that  you  think 
the  new  step  will  not  lead  to  separation.' 

Bright.  '  Oh  no,  I  am  not  afraid  of  that.' 

'  Do  you  think  that  the  present  Irish  representa- 
tives would  sit  in  an  Irish  Parliament,  and  that  they 
would  adopt  a  policy  of  public  plunder  ?  ' 

Bright.  '  Well,  I  have  said  to  you  already  that 
the  Irish  are  very  much  the  same  as  other  people,  and 
no  people  in  the  world  would  stand  these  fellows 
permanently.  No  ;  if  you  had  an  Irish  Parliament 
you  would  have  a  better  class  of  men  in  it.  I 
quite  understand  that.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
you  would  have  a  better  representation  at  once,  for 
these  fellows  would  try  to  hold  on.  But  the  man  who 
is  their  master  would  shake  them  off  one  by  one,  and 

86 


IRELAND 

the  people  would  support  him.  Mr.  Parnell  is  a 
remarkable  man,  but  a  bitter  enemy  of  this  country. 
He  would  have  great  difficulties  in  the  first  years  of 
an  Irish  Parliament,  but  he  might  overcome  them. 
Yet  many  of  these  fellows  hate  him'  (smiling).  'The 
Irish  hate  all  sort  of  government.  He  is  a  sort  of 
Government.' 

'  A  popular  government  ?  * 

Bright.  '  Well,  perhaps  so,  but  even  that  may 
not  save  him  in  the  end.  I  do  not  know  how  long 
he  will  be  able  to  control  these  fellows.' 

'  Well,  Mr.  Bright,  you  are  not  afraid  of  a  religious 
persecution,  nor  separation,  nor  pubhc  plunder.  Why 
do  you  object  to  Home  Rule  ?  ' 

Bright.  '  I  will  tell  you.  I  object  to  this  Bill. 
It  either  goes  too  far  or  it  does  not  go  far  enough.  If 
you  could  persuade  me  that  what  you  call  Home  Rule 
would  be  a  good  thing  for  Ireland,  I  would  still  object 
to  this  Bill.  It  does  not  go  fai  enough.  It  would  lead 
to  friction — to  constant  friction  between  the  two 
countries.  The  Irish  Parliament  would  be  constantly 
struggling  to  burst  the  bars  of  the  statutory  cage  in 
which  it  is  sought  to  confine  it.  Persuade  me  that 
Home  Rule  would  be  a  good  thing  for  Ireland  and  I 
would  give  you  the  widest  measure  possible,  con- 
sistently with  keeping  up  the  connexion  between  the 
two  countries.' 

I  asked,  '  You  would  give  us  control  of  the  land, 
police,  judges  ?  ' 

Bright.  '  Certainly,  I  would  give  you  a  measure 
which  would  make  it  impossible  for  the  two  Parliaments 
to  come  into  conflict.     There  is  the  danger.     If  you  get 

87 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

only  a  half-hearted  measure  you  will  immediately  ask 
for  more.  There  would  be  renewed  agitation — perhaps 
an  attempt  at  insurrection — and  in  the  end  we  should 
take  away  your  Parliament,  and  probably  make  you  a 
Crown  colony/ 

I  said,  '  Would  you  keep  the  Irish  members  in 
Westminster  ?  ' 

Bright.  '  Certainly  not.  Why,  the  best  clause 
in  Mr.  Gladstone's  Bill  is  the  one  which  excludes 
them.' 

'  If  you  were  a  Home  Ruler,  Mr.  Bright,  you  would, 
in  fact,  give  Ireland  Colonial  Home  Rule  ?  ' 

Bright.  '  I  would  give  her  a  measure  of  Home 
Rule  which  should  never  bring  her  Parliament  into 
close  relation  with  the  British  Parliament.  vShe  should 
have  control  over  everything  which  by  the  most  liberal 
interpretation  could  be  called  Irish.  I  would  either 
have  trust  or  distrust.  If  I  had  trust,  I  would  trust  to 
the  full ;  if  I  had  distrust,  I  would  do  nothing.  But  this 
is  a  halting  Bill.  If  you  establish  an  Irish  Parliament 
give  it  plenty  of  work  and  plenty  of  responsibility. 
Throw  the  Irish  upon  themselves.  Make  them  forget 
England  ;  let  their  energies  be  engaged  in  Irish  party 
warfare  ;  but  give  no  Irish  party  leader  an  opportunity 
of  raising  an  anti-English  cry.  That  is  what  a  good 
Home  Rule  Bill  ought  to  do.  This  Bill  does  not  do  it. 
Why,  the  Receiver-General  appointed  by  it  would  alone 
keep  alive  the  anti-English  feeling.  If  you  keep  alive 
that  feeling,  what  is  the  good  of  your  Home  Rule  ? 
Mark,  I  am  arguing  this  matter  from  your  own  point  of 
view.  But  I  do  not  think  that  Home  Rule  is  necessary. 
Let  us  work  on  the  old  lines,  but  work  more  constantly 

88 


IRELAND 

and  more  vigorously.  We  have  passed  some  good  land 
laws.     Well,  let  us  pass  more  if  necessary.' 

I  said,  '  But  will  you  ?  ' 

Bright.  '  I  think  so.  I  think  that  the  English 
people  are  now  thoroughly  aroused  to  the  necessities  of 
Ireland  :  they  are  beginning  to  understand  the  country, 
and  the  old  system  of  delay  and  injustice  will  not  be 
renewed.  If  Mr.  Parnell  would  only  apply  himself  to 
the  removal  of  the  practical  grievances  of  Ireland,there 
is  no  "  concession,''  as  you  call  it,  which  he  could  not 
get  from  the  Imperial  Parliament.  I  have  said  that  I 
am  not  afraid  that  Home  Rule  would  lead  to  separation. 
We  are  too  strong  for  that.  But  I  think  that  there  are 
certain  men  in  Ireland  who  would  make  an  effort  to 
obtain  separation.  I  mean  what  you  call  the  Old 
Fenians.  I  saw  a  letter  from  one  of  those  men  a  few 
days  ago — he  does  not  know  I  saw  it — a  very  long  letter. 
I  was  much  interested  in  it.  I  should  like  to  know  what 
you  are  going  to  do  with  him.  He  is  an  upright,  honour- 
able man,  ready,  I  can  quite  believe,  to  risk  anything  for 
his  country.  Now,  he  wants  separation,  and  he  wants 
to  obtain  it  in  regular  warfare.  He  is  mad,  but  a  mad- 
man with  a  conscience  is  sometimes  dangerous.  I  should 
think  that  he  could  appeal  to  the  young  men  of  the 
country,  young  fellows  full  of  sentiment  and  enthusiasm' 
— (a  pause) — '  fools  ;  but  they  might  make  themselves 
troublesome  to  your  Irish  Parliament.     Now,  what  will 

you  do  with ?     Will  he  be  content  with  an  Irish 

Parliament  of  any  sort  ?  ' 

'  Well,  Mr.  Bright,  I  am  in  a  good  position  to  answer 

that  question.     I  saw last  night.     I  asked  him 

if  he  would  accept  an  Irish  Parliament  and  an  Irish 

89 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Executive  which  would  have  the  fullest  control  of  Irish 
affairs — the  connexion  with  England,  of  course,  to  be 
preserved/ 

Bright.  '  Yes  ;   and  what  did  he  say  ?  ' 

*  He  said,  *'  I  would  take  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  an 
Irish  Parliament ;  I  will  never  take  it  to  an  English 
Parliament.  I  would  enter  an  Irish  Parliament ;  I 
would  give  it  a  fair  trial ''  ' 

Bright,  *  Well,  you  surprise  me.  This  is  cer- 
tainly a  new  light.  The  man  is  quite  honourable.  He 
will  do  what  he  says.  Well,  but  does  your  friend  think 
that  you  will  get  a  Home  Rule  Parliament  ?  ' 

*  No  ;  he  thinks  that  we  are  living  in  a  fool's 
paradise,  and  that  his  turn  will  come  again.  Still,  I 
fancy  that  he  is  somewhat  astonished  that  an  English 
Prime  Minister  should  introduce  any  sort  of  Home  Rule.* 

Bright.  *  So  am  I.  So  far  your  Old  Fenian  and 
I  agree.' 

We  then  parted.  As  I  left  the  Club  he  said,  '  Good- 
bye ;  I  wish  I  was  on  your  side.  I  have  been  on  the 
Irish  side  all  my  life,  and  now  at  the  end  of  my  life  I  do 
not  like  even  to  appear  to  be  against  you  ;  but  I  cannot 
vote  for  this  Bill.  I  have  not  spoken  against  it.  I  do 
not  know  that  I  will  speak  against  it,  but' — (a  pause) — 
'  that  is  on  account  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  My  personal 
regard  for  him  may  prevent  me  from  taking  any  part 
in  the  discussion.' 

He  said  no  more,  and  I  came  away.  But  his  opposi- 
tion to  the  Bill  did  not  weaken  the  affectionate  regard 
in  which  I  had  ever  held  him  ;  nor  do  I  cherish  his 
memory  the  less  now  because  he  was  not  on  the  Irish 
side  in  the  memorable  struggle  of  twenty-four  years 

90 


X>^-C^ 


i. 


IRELAND 


ago.  If  he  went  wrong  then,  I  cannot  forget  that  for 
the  best  part  of  his  pubUc  life  Ireland  had  no  stauncher 
friend  in  this  country.^ 


Notes  to  Chapter  V 


In  reference  to  Bright 's  allusion  to  the  Receiver- 
General,2  I  may  set  out  the  following  letter  which  I 
received  from  Mr.  Gladstone  in  1887.  Sir  Gavan 
Duffy  had  written  an  article  on  '  A  Fair  Constitution 
for  Ireland/  and  I  sent  it  to  Mr.  Gladstone.    He  replied : 

Hawarden,  Chester:  Aug.  17,  '87. 

Dear  Mr.  O'Brien, — I  thank  you  for  the  Duffy 
article.  It  contained  some  very  useful  information, 
especially  that  piece  about  Victorian  Land.  I  agree 
with  him  that  in  order  to  do  financial  justice  there 
should  be  a  full  and  careful  inquiry ;  and  this  I 
publicly  announced  twelve  months  ago. 

Upon  the  whole  matter,  I  am  extremely  glad  that 
an  example  should  have  been  set  of  discussing  the 
entire  question  de  novo  and  apart  from  our  plans ;  and 
I  hope  it  will  be  largely  followed. 

As  to  Sir  C.  G.  Duffy's  particular  ideas,  what  I 
should  like  to  know  is  Parnell's  estimate  of  them  ;  for 
that  is  a  man  of  remarkable  insight. 

The  Receiver-General  may  not  be  palatable,  and 
he  is  especially  connected  with  the  use  of  Imperial 
Credit  in  Land  Purchase.  But  he  would  be  worth 
millions  to  Ireland  for  the  transition  period. 

Faithfully  yours, 

W.  E.  Gladstone. 

*  See  the  Life  of  Charles  Stewart  Parnell. 
^  See  ante,  pp.  82  and  88. 

91 


JOHN  BRIGHT 


B 


I  had  a  conversation  with  Mr.  W.  L.  Bright  about 
his  father  in  November  1909.  He  said  that  with 
reference  to  Home  Rule  his  father  wrote  to  Mr. 
Chamberlain,  saying  in  effect,  that  as  the  differences 
between  Mr.  Chamberlain  and  Mr.  Gladstone  were  so 
trivial,  it  would  be  better  for  Mr.  Chamberlain  and 
his  friends  not  to  vote  against  the  second  reading  of 
the  Bill,  but  to  abstain  from  voting.  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain sent  the  letter  to  Mr.  W.  S.  Caine.  Mr.  W.  S. 
Caine  did  not  read  the  letter  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Liberal  Unionists,  but  conveyed  to  them  the  idea  that 
Bright  was  against  Home  Rule — a  statement  which,  of 
course,  had  a  great  effect  on  the  meeting.  Mr.  W.  L. 
Bright  saw  his  father  subsequently,  and  said  to 
him,  'Well,  you  have  decided  the  fate  of  Home 
Rule.'  Bright  asked  what  he  meant,  and  Mr.  W.  L. 
Bright  told  him  what  Mr.  Caine  had  said  at  the 
meeting.  Bright  then  told  his  son  what  he  had  exactly 
written  to  Mr.  Chamberlain.  But  the  letter  could  not 
be  produced  because  Mr.  Caine  had  torn  it  up. 

Bright  did  not  object  to  his  son  being  a  Home 
Ruler.  Mr.  W.  L.  Bright  said  to  him,  '  Well,  if  you 
object  to  the  course  I  am  taking  I  shall  leave  Parlia- 
ment. But  if  I  remain  there  I  must  vote  according  to 
my  conscience.'  Bright  told  him  not  to  leave 
Parliament,  and  to  vote  as  he  thought  right.^ 

^  On  this  subject  see  Sir  Henry  Lucy's  interesting  book,  Sixty 
Years  in  the  Wilderness. 


92 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    CRIMEAN    WAR 

One  day  Bright  was  passing  the  Crimean  Monument 
in  Waterloo  Place  with  a  friend.  Pointing  to  the  word 
Crimea  which  is  inscribed  on  the  pedestal,  he  said,  *  The 
last  letter  of  that  word  ought  to  be  the  first/  Bright 
abhorred  war.  But  he  did  not  condemn  the  Crimean 
War  on  the  principles  of  the  Peace  Society.  He  con- 
demned it  on  grounds  which  Lord  Palmerston,  one  of 
the  authors  of  the  war,  could  appreciate,— grounds  of 
justice,  wisdom  and  necessity. 

Speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  March  1854, 
he  said : 

I  shall  not  discuss  this  question  on  the  abstract 
principle  of  peace  at  any  price,  as  it  is  termed,  which  is 
held  by  a  small  minority  of  persons  in  this  country, 
founded  on  religious  opinions  which  are  not  generally 
received,  but  I  shall  discuss  it  entirely  on  principles 
which  are  accepted  by  all  the  members  of  this  House. 
I  shall  maintain  that  when  we  are  deliberating  on  the 
question  of  war,  and  endeavouring  to  prove  its  justice 
or  necessity,  it  becomes  us  to  show  that  the  interests  of 
the  country  are  clearly  involved  ;  that  the  objects  for 
which  the  war  is  undertaken  are  probable,  or,  at  least, 
possible,    of  attainment ;   and,  further,  that   the   end 

93 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

proposed  to  be  accomplished  is  worth  the  cost  and  the 
sacrifices  which  we  are  about  to  incur.  I  think  these  are 
fair  principles  on  which  to  discuss  the  question,  and  I 
hope  that  when  the  noble  lord  the  member  for  Tiver- 
ton [Lord  Palmerston]  rises  during  this  debate,  he  will 
not  assume  that  I  have  dealt  with  it  on  any  other  prin- 
ciples than  these. 

The  Crimean  War  is  a  familiar  story.  First,  there 
was  the  dispute  about  the  Holy  Places  between 
France,  claiming  to  protect  the  interests  of  the  Latin 
Church,  and  Russia,  claiming  to  protect  the  interests 
of  the  Greek  Church.  That  dispute  was  satisfactorily 
settled  by  the  Russian  and  English  ambassadors 
at  Constantinople  in  April  1853.  But  Russia  de- 
manded a  treaty  with  Turkey  for  the  protection  of  all 
persons  belonging  to  the  Greek  Church  in  the  Ottoman 
Empire.  This,  Russia  contended,  was  only  asking 
that  she  should  exercise  such  a  protectorate  over 
the  members  of  the  Greek  Church  in  the  dominions 
of  the  Porte  as  France  exercised  in  the  case  of 
Catholics  and  England  in  the  case  of  Protestants. 
The  Porte,  supported  by  the  English  ambassador  at 
Constantinople,  refused  to  sign  the  treaty,  whereupon 
the  Russian  ambassador  left  Turkey,  and  in  June 
1853  the  Russians  crossed  the  Pruth  and  occupied  the 
Danubian  Principalities  *  as  a  guarantee  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Greek  Christians.'  In  July  the  British 
and  French  fleets  were  ordered  to  Besika  Bay.  About 
the  same  time  (July  24)  the  representatives  of  France, 
England,  Prussia,  and  Austria  met  at  Vienna  and  pre- 
pared what  has  been  called  the  *  Vienna  Note '  for  the 
settlement  of  the  dispute  between  Russia  and  Turkey. 

94 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

This  Note  was  sent  to  Russia  and  accepted  by  the  Czar. 
It  was  then  sent  to  Turkey,  when  the  Porte  made  cer- 
tain amendments,  which  were  accepted  by  the  four 
Powers,  but  rejected  by  Russia.  Returning  to  their 
original  position,  Austria  and  Prussia  subsequently 
pressed  the  Porte  once  more  to  accept  the  *  Note ' ;  but 
England  and  France  took  the  contrary  course,  support- 
ing the  Porte  in  its  refusal.  Sir  Spencer  Walpole,  in  his 
*  History  of  England,'  places  the  '  Vienna  Note  '  and 
the  Note  as  amended  by  the  Porte  side  by  side  thus  : 

If  ^  the  Emperors  of  Russia  have  at  all  times  evinced 
their  active  solicitude  for  the 

maintenance  of  the  im-  Orthodox  Greek  religion 
munities  and  privileges  and  Church,  the  Sultans 
of  the  Orthodox  Greek  have  never  ceased  to  pro- 
Church  in  the  Ottoman  vide  for  the  maintenance 
Empire,  the  Sultans  have  of  the  privileges  and  im- 
never  refused  again  to  con-  munities  which  at  different 
firm  them  times  they  have  spontane- 

ously granted  to  that  re- 
ligion and  to  that  Church 
in  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
and  to  confirm  them 

by  solemn  acts  testifying  their  ancient  and  constant 
benevolence  towards  their  Christian  subjects. 

His  Majesty  the  Sultan  Abdul  Medjid,  now  reigning, 
inspired  with  the  same  dispositions,  and  being  desirous 
of  giving  to  His  Majesty  the  Emperor  of  Russia  a  per- 
sonal proof  of  his  most  sincere  friendship,  has  been 

1  In  the  text  the  words  occupying  the  whole  width  of  the  page  are 
common  to  the  Note  both  in  its  original  and  amended  form.  The  words 
in  the  left  column  are  in  the  original  Note  ;  the  words  in  the  right  column 
are  the  Porte's  amendment. 

95 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

solely  influenced  in  his  unbounded  confidence  in  the 
eminent  qualities  of  his  august  friend  and  ally,  and 
has  been  pleased  to  take  into  serious  consideration 
the  representations  which  His  Highness  Prince 
Menschikoff  conveyed  to  the  Sublime  Porte. 

The  undersigned  has  in  consequence  received 
orders  to  declare  by  the  present  note  that  the  Govern- 
ment of  His  Majesty  the  Sultan  will  remain  faithful  to 

the  letter  and  to  the  spirit  the  stipulations  of  the 
of  the  treaties  of  Kainardji  treaty  of  Kainardji,  con- 
and  Adrianople  relative  firmed  by  that  of  Adrian- 
to  the  protection  of  the  ople,  relative  to  the  pro- 
Christian  religion,   and         tection    by    the    Sublime 

Porte  of  the  Christian 
religion,  and  he  is  more- 
over charged  to  make 
known 

that  His  Majesty  considers  himself  bound  in  honour  to 
cause  to  be  observed  for  ever,  and  to  preserve  from  all 
prejudice  either  now  or  hereafter,  the  enjoyment  of  the 
spiritual  privileges  which  have  been  granted  by  His 
Majesty's  august  ancestors  to  the  Orthodox  Eastern 
Church,  which  are  maintained  and  confirmed  by  him  ; 
and  moreover,  in  a  spirit  of  exalted  equity,  to  cause  the 
Greek  rite  to  share  in  the  advantages  granted 

to  the  other  Christian  rites  or  which  might  be  granted 
by  convention  or  special  to  the  other  Christian 
arrangement.  communities,        Ottoman 

subjects. 

In  September  1853  the  English  fleet  was  ordered 
from  Besika  Bay  to  the  Bosphorus  for  the  protection 
of  Constantinople.^      In  October  the  English  ambas- 

^  The  treaty  of  1841  had  strictly  forbidden  the  Porte  to  admit,  or 
other  Powers  to  send,  ships  of  war  to  the  Bosphorus  while  Turkey  was 

96 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

sador  at  Constantinople  was  authorised  to  summon  the 
fleet  if  necessary  from  the  Bosphorus  to  the  Euxine. 
About  the  same  time  the  Sultan  sent  an  ultimatum  to 
Russia  calling  upon  her  to  evacuate  the  Principalities. 
Russia  refused ;  whereupon  Turkey  declared  war 
(October  5)  and  Turkish  troops  crossed  the  Danube 
and  defeated  the  Russians  in  several  engagements.  In 
retaliation  the  Russian  fleet  issued  from  Sebastopol 
in  November  and  destroyed  the  Turkish  fleet  at  Sinope.^ 
England  and  France  then  decided  that  their  fleets 
should  not  merely  enter  the  Black  Sea,  but  should 
'  invite  '  every  Russian  vessel  found  there  to  return  to 
Sebastopol.  Almost  simultaneously  with  this  decision 
another  Note,  pressed  by  the  four  Powers  on  the 
Sultan,  was  accepted  by  that  potentate ;  but  the  Czar, 
indignant  at  the  decision  of  France  and  England  in 
ordering  his  ships  out  of  the  Black  Sea,  withdrew  his 
ambassadors  from  Paris  and  London  in  January  1854, 
and  in  February  the  French  and  English  ambassadors 
left  St.  Petersburg.  On  February  27  England  and 
France  sent  an  ultimatum  to  Russia  summoning  her 
to  withdraw  her  troops  from  the  Principalities.  The 
Czar  did  not  notice  the  ultimatum.     On  March  11  the 


at  peace.  The  new  policy,  therefore,  could  only  be  justified  by  the 
assumption  that  Turkey  was  at  war— Walpole,  History  of  England, 
vol.  V.  p.  97. 

^  No  Englishman  had  a  right  to  complain  that  the  Czar,  after  war 
had  been  declared  against  him,  should  have  committed  an  act  of  war. 
If  Englishmen,  in  fact,  had  enjoyed  even  a  superficial  acquaintance 
with  their  own  history,  they  would  have  known  that,  forty-seven  years 
before,  their  own  ancestors  had  committed  an  act  of  much  more 
doubtful  propriety,  which  English  historians  always  defend.  Yet  if  the 
battle  of  Sinope  were  indefensible,  the  bombardment  of  Copenhagen 
in  1807  was  an  outrage. — Ibid.,  p.  99. 

97 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

English  fleet  sailed  for  the  Baltic  under  the  command 
of  Sir  Charles  Napier.  Prior  to  the  departure  of  the 
fleet  a  dinner  was  given  to  Sir  Charles  Napier  at  the 
Reform  Club.  Lord  Palmerston  presided,  and  among 
the  company  was  Sir  James  Graham,  the  First  Lord 
of  the  Admiralty.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  levity,  and 
what  Bright  subsequently  called  '  buffoonery,'  at  the 
dinner.  .  Napier  and  Graham,  in  particular,  made 
undignified  and  blustering  speeches.  Napier  said,  '  I 
suppose  we  are  very  nearly  at  war,  and  probably,  when 
I  get  into  the  Baltic,  1 11  have  an  opportunity  of 
declaring  war  ' — an  announcement  which  was  received 
with  cries  of  '  Bravo,  Charlie  !  '  Sir  James  Graham 
said,  '  My  gallant  friend  says  that  when  he  goes  into  the 
Baltic  he  will  declare  war  :  I,  as  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty,  give  him  my  free  consent  to  do  so.' 

On  March  13  Bright  called  the  attention  of  the 
House  of  Commons  to  these  speeches,  asked  Palmerston 
if  he  approved  of  them,  and  condemned  the  whole  pro- 
ceedings as  grotesque  and  disgraceful.  He  said,  '  I  have 
read  the  proceedings  of  that  banquet  with  pain  and 
humiliation.  The  reckless  levity  displayed  is,  in  my 
own  opinion,  discreditable  to  the  grave  and  responsible 
statesmen  of  a  civilised  and  Christian  nation/ 

Palmerston  made  a  flippant  reply,  called  Bright '  the 
honourable  and  reverend  gentleman  '  (an  epithet  which 
brought  upon  him  a  dignified  rebuke  from  Cobden), 
and  treated  the  whole  subject  contemptuously. 
Macaulay  (who  was  a  great  admirer  of  Palmerston) 
gives  us  his  impression  of  the  scene.     He  says  : 

I  went  to  the  House  on  Monday,  but  for  any  plea- 
sure I  got  I  might  as  well  have  stayed  awav.     I  heard 

98 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

Bright  say  everything  that  I  thought ;  and  I  heard 
Palmerston  and  Graham  expose  themselves  lament- 
ably. Palmerston's  want  of  temper,  judgment,  and 
good  breeding  was  almost  incredible.  He  did  himself 
more  harm  in  three  minutes  than  all  his  enemies  and 
detractors  throughout  the  world  have  been  able  to  do 
him  in  twenty  years.     I  came  home  quite  dispirited.^ 

On  March  31,  1854,  the  Queen's  message  an- 
nouncing the  declaration  of  war  by  England  was 
brought  down  to  the  House.  Bright  took  part  in  the 
debate  which  ensued.  He  made  a  calm,  dispassion- 
ate, closely  reasoned,  statesmanlike  speech  showing  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  details  of  the  negotiations 
which  had  led  up  to  the  war.  He  fastened  at  once  on 
the  Vienna  Note,  and  said  Turkey  should  have  accepted 
it.  It  had  been  approved  of  by  the  four  Powers ;  it 
had  been  accepted  by  Russia ;  it  had  been  pressed  on 
the  Porte  by  the  English  ambassador  at  Constanti- 
nople ;  and  the  four  Powers  should  have  insisted  on  its 
acceptance  by  Turkey,  or  left  her  to  face  Russia  single- 
handed.2  On  the  contrary,  they  allowed  themselves  to 
be  led  by  Turkey,  and  showed  extraordinary  weakness 
and  vacillation.  It  was  said  that  the  war  was  under- 
taken to  resuscitate  Turkey.  But  Turkey  could  not  be 
resuscitated.  She  was  tottering  to  her  fall,  and  that  fall 
could  not  ultimately  be  averted.  Russia  was  a  growing 
Power,  and  no  matter  what  the  immediate  result  of  the 

^  Trevelyan,  Life  of  Macaulay. 

2  Years  afterwards  a  member  of  the  British  Cabinet  (Lord  John 
Russell)  declared  in  his  Recollections  that,  if  he  had  been  Prime 
Minister  in  1853,  he  would  have  insisted  on  the  acceptance  of  the  Vienna 
Note.  It  is,  unfortunately,  certain  that  the  man  who  penned  this  sentence 
in  his  old  age  gave  very  different  advice  to  his  colleagues  in  1853. 
— Walpole,  History  of  England,  vol.  v.  p.  95. 

99 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

war  might  be,  her  advance  could  not  finally  be  prevented. 
Whatever  treaty  might  be  made  for  the  purpose  of 
crippling  her  she  would  tear  up  when  the  opportunity 
came,  as  come  it  would.     England  had  no  interest  in  the 
war,  and  the  advantages  likely  to  be  gained  by  it  were 
in  no  wise  commensurate  with  the  loss  of  treasure  and 
blood  certain  to  be  sacrificed  in  the  struggle.     So  said 
Bright,  but  he  spoke  to  deaf  ears.     The  English  people 
were  bent  on  war ;  and  Bright  could  only  (as  he  bravely 
and  nobly  did)  face  the  storm  of  rage  and  fury  which 
were  madly  driving  them  into  it.     Meanwhile  events 
were  moving  rapidly  on  the  Continent.     In  May  1854 
the  Russians  laid  siege  to  SiHstria,  but  were  repulsed 
and  compelled  to  retire  from  the  Principalities.     Then 
there  was  an  opportunity  for  peace.     The  war  had  been 
immediately  caused  by  Russia's  refusal  to  evacuate  the 
Principalities.     Now  she  had  been  forced  to  retire. 
Had  England  and  France  been  as  much  bent  on  peace 
as  they  were  on  war,  this  opportunity  would  have  been 
seized  by  them  to  bring  hostilities  to  an  end.     How- 
ever, determined  to  humiliate  and  to  cripple  Russia, 
they  proposed  (in  August  1854)  terms  which  the  Czar 
said  he  would  only  grant  in  the  last  extremity.     These 
terms — called  the  Four  Points — were  : 

1.  That  the  Protectorate  of  Russia  over  the 
Danubian  Principalities  and  Servia  must  cease  ; 

2.  That  the  navigation  of  the  Danube  at  its  mouth 
must  be  freed  from  all  obstacles  ; 

3.  That  the  Treaty  of  July  1841  relating  to  the 
Black  Sea  and  the  Dardanelles,^  must  be  revised  in  the 
interest  of  the  balance  of  power  in  Europe  ;   and 

^  It  gave  Russia  a  preponderance  in  the  Black  Sea. 
100 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR  .    . '\  I   \^'  \}l 

4.  That  the  claim  to  any  official  Protectorate  over 
Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte,  of  whatever  rite,  must 
be  abandoned  by  the  Czar.^ 

The  war  went  on.  In  September  1854  ^^^  Allied 
armies  landed  in  the  Crimea.  On  the  20th  the  battle 
of  the  Alma  was  fought ;  on  October  17  the  siege 
of  Sebastopol  began;  on  October  25  the  battle  of 
Balaclava  was  fought.  In  the  same  month  Bright  was 
invited  to  a  war  meeting  at  Manchester.  He  replied 
(declining  the  invitation)  in  a  famous  letter  addressed 
to  Mr.  Absolom  Watkin,  condemning  the  war  and, 
inter  alia,  summing  up  the  whole  case  in  the  following 
pithy  sentences :  « 

[The  Government,]  in  concert  with  France,  Austria 
and  Prussia,  took  the  original  dispute  out  of  the  hands 
of  Russia  and  Turkey  and  formed  themselves  into  a 
court  of  arbitration  in  the  interests  of  Turkey  ;  they 
made  an  award  which  they  declared  to  be  safe  and 
honourable  for  both  parties  ;  this  award  was  accepted 
by  Russia  and  rejected  by  Turkey  ;  and  they  then 
turned  round  upon  their  own  award*and  declared  it  to 
be  '  totally  inadmissible,'  and  made  war  upon  the  very 
country  whose  Government,  at  their  suggestion  and 
urgent  recommendation,  had  frankly  accepted  it. 

On  November  5  the  battle  of  Inkerman  was 
fought ;  and  throughout  the  winter  great  hardships 
and  sufferings,  aggravated  by  the  incompetence  of  the 
authorities  to  grapple  with  the  situation,  fell  upon 
the  EngHsh  army.  In  December  Parhament  met, 
and  there  was  a  general  outcry  in  the  country  and  in 
the  Press  against  the  mismanagement  of  the  war  by 
the    Government.      On   December    22,    1854,   Bright 

^  Sunimarised  in  Fyffe's  History  of  Modern  Europe,  vol.  iii.  p.  209. 

lOI 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

made  a  famous  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
full  of  passion  and  eloquence  and  bold  denunciation  of 
the  Ministry.  His  description  of  Russell  and  Palmer- 
ston  is  excellent.  The  following  passage  is  a  specimen 
of  dehcate  humour  and  refined  ridicule.     He  said  : 

When  terrible  calamities  were  coming  upon  your 
army,  where  was  this  Government  ?  One  Minister 
was  in  Scotland,  another  at  the  seaside,  and  for  six 
weeks  no  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  took  place.  I  do  not 
note  when  Cabinets  are  held — I  sometimes  observe 
that  they  sit  for  four  or  five  hours  at  a  time,  and  then  I 
think  something  is  wrong — but  for  six  weeks,  or  two 
months,  it  is  said,  no  meeting  of  the  Ministers  was  held. 
The  noble  Lord  President  [Russell]  was  making  a  small 
speech  on  a  great  subject  somewhere  in  Cumberland. 
At  Bedford  he  descanted  on  the  fate  of  empires,  for- 
getting that  there  was  nothing  so  likely  to  destroy  an 
empire  as  unnecessary  wars.  At  Bristol  he  was  advo- 
cating a  new  History  of  England,  which,  if  impartially 
written,  I  know  not  how  the  noble  lord's  policy  for  the 
last  few  months  will  show  to  posterity.  The  noble 
lord  the  member  for  Tiverton  [Palmerston]  undertook 
a  more  difficult  task — a  labour  left  unaccomplished 
by  Voltaire — and,  when  he  addressed  the  Hampshire 
peasantry,  in  one  short  sentence  did  he  overturn  the 
New  Testament  and  destroy  the  foundations  of  the 
Christian  religion. 

The  peroration  was  marked  by  deep  feeling  and 
indignant  remonstrance,  expressed  in  language  most 
galling  and  at  the  same  time  courteous  and  dignified : 

When  I  look  at  gentlemen  on  that  Bench,  and 
consider  all  their  policy  has  brought  about  within  the 
last  twelve  months,  I  scarcely  dare  trust  myself  to 
speak  of  them,  either  in  or  out  of  their  presence.  We 
all  know  what  we  have  lost  in  this  House.    Here,  sitting 

102 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

near  me,  very  often  sat  the  member  for  Frome  [Colonel 
Boyle] .  I  met  him,  a  short  time  before  he  went  out, 
at  Mr.  Westerton's,  the  bookseller,  near  Hyde  Park 
Corner.  I  asked  him  whether  he  was  going  out.  He 
answered  he  was  afraid  he  was  ;  not  afraid  in  the 
sense  of  personal  fear — he  knew  not  that ;  but  he  said, 
with  a  look  and  a  tone  I  shall  never  forget,  '  It  is  no 
light  matter  for  a  man  who  has  a  wife  and  five  little 
children.'  The  stormy  Euxine  is  his  grave ;  his  wife 
is  a  widow,  his  children  fatherless.  On  the  other  side 
of  the  House  sat  a  member,  with  whom  I  was  not 
acquainted,  who  has  lost  his  life,  and  another  of  whom 
I  knew  something  [Colonel  Blair].  Who  is  there  that 
does  not  recollect  his  frank,  amiable,  and  manly 
countenance  ?  I  doubt  whether  there  were  any  men 
on  either  side  of  the  House  who  were  more  capable  of 
fixing  the  goodwill  and  affection  of  those  with  whom 
they  were  associated.  Well,  but  the  place  that  knew 
them  shall  know  them  no  more  for  ever. 

I  have  specified  only  two  ;  but  there  are  a  hundred 
officers  who  have  been  killed  in  battle,  or  who  have 
died  of  their  wounds  ;  forty  have  died  of  disease  ;  and 
more  than  two  hundred  others  have  been  wounded 
more  or  less  severely.  This  has  been  a  terribly  destruc- 
tive war  to  officers.  They  have  been,  as  one  would  have 
expected  them  to  be,  the  first  in  valour  as  the  first  in 
place  ;  they  have  suffered  more  in  proportion  to  their 
numbers  than  the  commonest  soldiers  in  the  ranks. 
This  has  spread  sorrow  over  the  whole  country.  I  was 
in  the  House  of  Lords  when  the  vote  of  thanks  was 
moved.  In  the  gallery  were  many  ladies,  three- 
fourths  of  whom  were  dressed  in  the  deepest  mourning. 
Is  this  nothing  ?  And,  in  every  village,  cottages  are  to 
be  found  into  which  sorrow  has  entered,  and,  as  I 
believe,  through  the  policy  of  the  Ministry,  which  might 
have  been  avoided.  No  one  supposes  that  the  Govern- 
ment wished  to  spread  the  pall  of  sorrow  over  the  land  ; 

103 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

but  this  we  had  a  right  to  expect,  that  they  would  at 
least  show  becoming  gravity  in  discussing  a  subject 
the  appalling  consequences  of  which  may  come  home 
to  individuals  and  to  the  nation.  I  recollect  when  Sir 
Robert  Peel  addressed  the  House  on  a  dispute  which 
threatened  hostilities  with  the  United  States — I 
recollect  the  gravity  of  his  countenance,  the  solemnity 
of  his  tone,  his  whole  demeanour  showing  that  he  felt  in 
his  soul  the  responsibility  that  rested  on  him. 

I  have  seen  this,  and  I  have  seen  the  present  Min- 
istry. There  was  the  buffoonery  at  the  Reform  Club. 
Was  that  becoming  a  matter  of  this  grave  nature  ? 
Has  there  been  a  solemnity  of  manner  in  the  speeches 
heard  in  connexion  with  this  war,  and  have  Ministers 
shown  themselves  statesmen  and  Christian  men  when 
speaking  on  a  subject  of  this  nature  ?  It  is  very  easy 
for  the  noble  lord  the  member  for  Tiverton  to  rise  and 
say  that  I  am  against  war  under  all  circumstances, 
and  that  if  an  enemy  were  to  land  on  our  shores  I 
should  make  a  calculation  as  to  whether  it  would  be 
cheaper  to  take  him  in  or  keep  him  out,  and  that  my 
opinion  on  this  question  is  not  to  be  considered  either 
by  Parliament  or  the  country.  I  am  not  afraid  oi 
discussing  the  war  with  the  noble  lord  on  his  own 
principles.  I  understand  the  Blue  Books  as  well  as 
he  ;  and,  leaving  out  all  fantastic  and  visionary  notions 
about  what  will  become  of  us  if  something  is  not  done 
to  destroy  or  to  cripple  Russia,  I  say — and  I  say  it  with 
as  much  confidence  as  I  ever  said  anything  in  my  life — 
that  the  war  cannot  be  justified  out  of  these  documents  ; 
and  that  impartial  history  will  teach  this  to  posterity 
if  W8  do  not  comprehend  it  now. 

I  am  not,  nor  did  I  ever  pretend  to  be,  a  statesman  ; 
and  that  character  is  so  tainted  and  so  equivocal  in  our 
day,  that  I  am  not  sure  that  a  pure  and  honourable 
ambition  would  aspire  to  it.  I  have  not  enjoyed  for 
thirty  years,  like  these  noble  lords,  the  honours  and 

104 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

emoluments  of  office.  I  have  not  set  my  sails  to  every 
passing  breeze.  I  am  a  plain  and  simple  citizen,  sent 
here  by  one  of  the  foremost  constituencies  of  the  Em- 
pire, representing  feebly,  perhaps,  but  honestly,  I  dare 
aver,  the  opinions  of  very  many,  and  the  true  interests 
of  all  those  who  have  sent  me  here.  Let  it  not  be  said 
that  I  am  alone  in  my  condemnation  of  this  war,  and 
of  this  incapable  and  guilty  administration.  And, 
even  if  I  were  alone,  if  mine  were  a  solitary  voice, 
raised  amid  the  din  of  arms  and  the  clamours  of  a 
venal  Press,  I  should  have  the  consolation  I  have  to- 
night— and  which  I  trust  will  be  mine  to  the  last 
moment  of  my  existence — the  priceless  consolation  that 
no  word  of  mine  has  tended  to  promote  the  squandering 
of  my  country's  treasure  or  the  spilling  of  one  single 
drop  of  my  country's  blood. 

In  January  1855  Mr.  Roebuck  moved  for  a  com- 
mittee to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  the  Army 
and  the  conduct  of  the  war.  The  motion  was 
carried  by  a  majority  of  157  votes,  whereupon 
Lord  Aberdeen  resigned  and  Lord  Palmerston  be- 
came Prime  Minister.  In  February  the  Czar 
Nicholas  died  and  was  succeeded  by  Alexander  11. 
Alexander  wished  for  peace,  and  expressed  his  willing- 
ness (Nicholas  indeed  had  done  the  same  thing  some 
short  time  before  his  death)  to  consider  the  question 
on  the  basis  of  the  Four  Points.^  It  was  agreed 
between  France,  England,  Russia,  and  Austria  that  a 
conference  on  the  subject  should  be  held  at  Vienna 
in  March  ;  and  Lord  John  Russell  was  sent  as  the 
English  envoy  to  this  conference.  While  negotiations 
for  peace  were  in  the  air.  Bright  addressed  the  House 

^  Ante,  pp.  100  and  loi. 

105 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

of  Commons  in  one  of  the  shortest  and,  I  think,  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  speeches  he  ever  deHvered.  It  was 
couched  in  amicable  terms.  He  did  not  criticise  the 
war  ;  he  did  not  attack  the  Ministry ;  he  simply 
appealed  earnestly  to  Lord  Palmerston  to  use  the 
opportunity  which  offered  itself  by  the  proposed 
negotiations  at  Vienna  for  the  sole  purpose  of  stopping 
the  war  on  honourable  and  reasonable  terms.  It  has 
sometimes  been  said  that  Bright  was  not  an  effective 
extempore  speaker.  This  is  not  true.  In  dealing  with 
interruptions  his  extempore  outbursts  were  magnifi- 
cent. I  shall  give  an  illustration  from  this  speech  of 
February  23, 1855.  He  asked  Lord  Palmerston  if  Lord 
John  Russell  had  power  to  enter  into  an  armistice  if 
the  circumstances  justified  this  step.     He  said  : 

I  should  like  to  ask  the  noble  lord  at  the  head  of 
the  Government — although  I  am  not  sure  if  he  will  feel 
that  he  can  or  ought  to  answer  the  question — whether 
the  noble  lord  the  member  for  London  has  power, 
after  discussions  have  commenced,  and  as  soon  as  there 
shall  be  established  good  grounds  for  believing  that  the 
negotiations  for  peace  will  prove  successful,  to  enter 
into  any  armistice  ? 

At  this  point  an  honourable  member  said,  '  No,  No  !  ' 
Bright's  reply  was  like  the  roar  of  a  lion  irritated  by 
the  growl  of  some  contemptible  denizen  of  the  forest : 

I  know  not,  sir,  who  it  is  that  says,  *  No,  no,'  but 
I  should  like  to  see  any  man  get  up  and  say  that  the 
destruction  of  200,000  human  lives  lost  on  all  sides 
during  the  course  of  this  unhappy  conflict  is  not  a 
sufficient  sacrifice.  You  are  not  pretending  to  conquer 
territory — you  are  not  pretending  to  hold  fortified  or 
unfortified  towns  ;    you  have  offered  terms  of  peace 

106 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

which,  as  I  understand  them,  I  do  not  say  are  not 
moderate  ;  and  breathes  there  a  man  in  this  House  or 
in  this  country  whose  appetite  for  blood  is  so  insatiable 
that,  even  when  terms  of  peace  have  been  offered  and 
accepted,  he  pines  for  that  assault  in  which  of  Russian, 
Turk,  French,  and  English,  as  sure  as  one  man  dies, 
20,000  corpses  will  strew  the  streets  of  Sebastopol  ? 

It  is  in  the  peroration  of  this  speech  that  the  memor- 
able reference  to  the  Angel  of  Death  occurs : 

I  cannot  but  notice,  in  speaking  to  gentlemen  who 
sit  on  either  side  of  this  House,  or  in  speaking  to  any 
one  I  meet,  between  this  House  and  any  of  those 
localities  we  frequent  when  this  House  is  up — I  cannot, 
I  say,  but  notice  that  an  uneasy  feeling  exists  as  to  the 
news  which  may  arrive  by  the  very  next  mail  from  the 
East.  I  do  not  suppose  that  your  troops  are  to  be 
beaten  in  actual  conflict  with  the  foe,  or  that  they  will 
be  driven  into  the  sea ;  but  I  am  certain  that  many 
homes  in  England  in  which  there  now  exists  a  fond 
hope  that  the  distant  one  may  return — many  such 
homes  may  be  rendered  desolate  when  the  next  mail 
shall  arrive.  The  Angel  of  Death  has  been  abroad 
throughout  the  land ';  you  may  almost  hear  the  beating 
of  his~wings.  There  is  no  one,  as  when  the  first-born 
were  slain  of  old,  to  sprinkle  with  blood  the  lintel  and 
the  two  side-posts  of  our  doors,  that  he  may  spare  and 
pass  on  ;  he  takes  his  victims  from  the  castle  of  the 
noble,  the  mansion  of  the  wealthy  and  the  cottage  of 
the  poor  and  the  lowly,  and  it  is  on  behalf  of  all  these 
classes  that  I  make  this  solemn  appeal. 

I  tell  the  noble  lord  that,  if  he  be  ready  honestly 
and  frankly  to  endeavour,  by  the  negotiations  about 
to  be  opened  at  Vienna,  to  put  an  end  to  this  war, 
no  word  of  mine,  no  vote  of  mine,  will  be  given 
to  shake  his  power  for  one  single  moment,  or 
to    change    his   position  in   this   House.     I  am   sure 

107 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

that  the  noble  lord  is  not  inaccessible  to  appeals 
made  to  him  from  honest  motives  and  with  no 
unfriendly  feeling.  The  noble  lord  has  been  for  more 
than  forty  years  a  member  of  this  House.  Before 
I  was  born  he  sat  upon  the  Treasury  Bench,  and 
he  has  spent  his  life  in  the  service  of  his  country. 
He  is  no  longer  young,  and  his  life  has  extended 
almost  to  the  term  allotted  to  man.  I  would  ask,  I 
would  entreat,  the  noble  lord  to  take  a  course  which, 
when  he  looks  back  upon  his  whole  political  career — 
whatever  he  may  therein  find  to  be  pleased  with,  what- 
ever to  regret — cannot  but  be  a  source  of  gratification 
to  him.  By  adopting  that  course  he  would  have  the 
satisfaction  of  reflecting  that,  having  obtained  the 
object  of  his  laudable  ambition — having  become  the 
foremost  subject  of  the  Crown,  the  director  of,  it  may 
be,  the  destinies  of  his  country,  and  the  presiding 
genius  in  her  councils — he  had  achieved  a  still  higher 
and  nobler  ambition  :  that  he  had  returned  the  sword 
to  the  scabbard — that  at  his  word  torrents  of  blood 
had  ceased  to  flow — that  he  had  restored  tranquillity 
to  Europe,  and  saved  this  country  from  the  indescrib- 
able calamities  of  war. 

The  conference  met  in  March.  The  Powers  agreed 
to  the  first  two  of  the  Four  Points,  but  differed  hope- 
lessly on  the  third.  Russia  was  willing  that  her  pre- 
ponderance in  the  Black  Sea,  established  by  the  treaty 
of  1841,  should  cease  ;  but  this  was  not  enough  for 
England  and  France,  who  wished  to  humiliate  and 
cripple  their  enemy.  They  insisted  that  the  Russian 
fleet  in  the  Black  Sea  should  be  limited  to  six  ships. 
Russia  objected  to  this  indignity,  but  suggested,  as  a 
counter-proposal,  that  the  Bosphorus  and  Dardanelles 
should  be  open  to  ships  of  war  of  all  nations.  The 
Austrian  ambassador  then  suggested  as  a  compromise 

108 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

that  any  addition  made  by  Russia  to  her  fleet  in  the 
Black  Sea  should  be  followed  by  the  admission  of  a 
corresponding  number  of  war  vessels  belonging  to  the 
Allies,  and  that  the  integrity  of  Turkey  should  be 
guaranteed  by  Austria  and  the  Western  Powers.  But 
though  this  proposal  was  privately  favoured  by  the 
English  and  French  envoys,  their  respective  Govern- 
ments, bent,  as  I  have  said,  on  humiliating  and 
crippling  Russia,  would  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less 
than  the  limitation  of  her  fleet  in  the  Euxine.  So  the 
conference  came  to  an  end  and  the  war  went  on.i 

Bright  considered  that  Russia's  proposals  were 
reasonable  and  ought  to  have  been  accepted.  He  said 
that  the  attempt  to  limit  her  fleet  in  the  Black  Sea 
was  the  same  in  principle  '  as  if  she  were  asked  to  limit 
the  amount  of  her  force  in.  the  Crimea  to  four  or  six 

^  •  Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  who  personally  conducted  the  negotiations  on 
the  part  of  France,  and  Russell,  who  represented  England,  both 
declared  that  Buol's  alternative  was  outside  their  instructions,  and 
that  they  were  consequently  unable  to  accept  it ;  but  both  of  them 
privately  expressed  to  Buol  their  readiness  to  support  it,  and  both 
undertook  to  go  Jiome  and  recommend  its  adoption  to  their  respective 
Governments.  The  Emperor  of  France  and  the  Cabinet  of  England 
concurred,  however,  in  disagreeing  with  their  plenipotentiaries,  and  the 
alternative  was  consequently  rejected.  Upon  its  rejection,  Drouyn  de 
Lhuys  at  once  resigned  the  office  he  held  in  the  Emperor's  Ministry. 
On  the  other  hand,  Russell  remained  in  the  Ministry  and,  without 
disclosing  the  opinion  which  he  had  formed  at  Vienna,  made  a  violent 
speech  in  favour  of  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  Such  a  course  naturally 
provoked  the  Austrian  minister  to  disclose  the  language  which  Russell 
had  held  at  Vienna.  Charged  with  it,  Russell  had  no  excuse  to  offer, 
except  the  inconvenience  which  he  thought  would  be  involved  by  his 
own  resignation.  But  the  excuse  was  not  suffered  to  remain  in  force. 
The  Press  denounced  his  conduct ;  Bulwer  Lytton,  giving  expression  to 
the  public  verdict,  gave  notice  of  a  motion  censuring  his  position  as 
well  as  his  policy  ;  and  Russell,  bending  before  the  storm,  retired  from 
the  Ministry.' — Walpole,  History  of  England,  vol.  v.  pp.  136-7. 

109 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

regiments/  He  regarded  the  policy  of  crippling 
Russia  as  hopeless,  and  said  in  effect  that  though  she 
might  be  defeated  for  a  time,  she  could  not  be  per- 
manently weakened  and  humbled.     He  said  : 

Some  honourable  gentlemen  talk  as  if  Russia 
were  a  Power  which  you  could  take  to  Bow  Street 
and  bind  over  before  some  stipendiary  magistrate 
to  keep  the  peace  for  six  months.  Russia  is  a  great 
Power,  as  England  is,  and  in  treating  with  her  you 
must  consider  that  the  Russian  Government  has  to 
consult  its  own  dignity,  its  own  interests  and  public 
opinion,  just  as  much  at  least  as  the  Government  of 
this  country. 

But  Bright  struggled  in  vain  to  stem  the  torrent  of 
passion  and  prejudice  which  had  swept  the  English 
people  into  war  and  was  still  carrying  them  forward 
on  a  warlike  course.  At  length  Sebastopol  fell  on 
September  9,  1855,  and  negotiations  for  peace  were 
shortly  afterwards  opened.  The  treaty  of  peace  was 
finally  signed  at  Paris  on  March  30,  1856.  By  the 
treaty — 

1.  The  Black  Sea  was  neutralised  and  closed  against 
war  vessels  of  all  nations,  though  open  to  the  mercantile 
marine  of  every  nation.  No  arsenals  were  to  be 
established  on  its  coasts. 

2.  Free  navigation  of  the  Danube  was  established ; 
Russia  gave  up  a  portion  of  Bessarabia,  and  accepted 
a  frontier  which  excluded  her  from  the  river.  Russia 
and  Turkey  gave  up  the  conquests  which  each  had  made 
in  Asia  Minor  during  the  war. 

3.  The  Sultan  was  to  issue  a  firman  for  the  amelio- 
ration of  his  Christian  subjects ;  but  this  firman  gave  no 

no 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR 

right  to  any  Power  to  interfere  in  the  internal  affairs 
of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 

Early  in  1856  Bright's  health  broke  down  and  he 
was  obliged  to  retire  for  a  time  from  public  life.  He 
visited  the  Continent.  While  there  he  met  the  widow 
of  the  Emperor  Nicholas.  She  thanked  him  for  doing 
justice  to  her  country.  He  said  he  had  tried  to  do 
justice  to  her  country  and  to  his  own.  There  was  a 
general  election  in  1857,  and  so  unpopular  had  Bright's 
opposition  to  the  Crimean  War  made  him,  that  he 
lost  his  seat  for  Manchester ;  he  was  indeed  left 
at  the  bottom  of  the  poll.  Lord  Palmerston  had/ 
triumphed  all  along  the  line ;  but  the  day  of 
Bright's  vindication  was  not  far  distant.  He 
had  said  that  whatever  treaty  Russia  might  be 
forced  to  make,  in  the  moment  of  defeat,  she  would 
tear  it  up  when  the  opportunity  came,  as  come  it 
would.  The  opportunity  did  come  in  1870.  In  that 
year  France  was  humbled  to  the  dust  by  Prussia  ;  and 
Russia  at  once  declared  that  she  would  no  longer 
observe  the  Treaty  of  Paris.  In  January  1871  the 
signatories  to  the  treaty  met  in  London  and  abrogated 
the  Black  Sea  clauses.  The  Black  Sea  became  once 
more  a  '  Russian  lake,'  with  ships  of  war  and  fortresses 
and  dockyards  and  arsenals.  Sebastopol  rose  from 
its  ashes.  Everything  for  which  England  had  fought, 
squandered  her  treasure  and  wasted  the  blood  of  her 
soldiers,  was  lost.  A  few  years  later  war  broke  out  again 
between  Russia  and  Turkey.  Turkey  was  beaten  to  the 
ground.  By  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  (July  1878),  which 
terminated  the  war,  Russia  received  back  Bessarabia 
and  obtained  besides  the  districts  of  Ardahan,  Kars, 

III 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

and  Batoum  in  Asia.  Turkey  was,  besides,  stripped 
of  much  territory,  out  of  which  independent  or  semi- 
independent  States  were  carved. ^  The  folly  (Bright 
would  have  said  the  wickedness)  of  Palmerston  in 
plunging  England  into  the  Crimean  War  was  finally 
demonstrated.  The  vindication  of  Bright  was 
complete. 

^  The  Provisions  of    the   Treaty  are  well  summarised  in  English 
Political  History  by  Messrs.  Acland  and  Ransome. 
By  the  Treaty  of  Berlin — 

1.  Bulgaria,  north  of  the  Balkans,  was  constituted  an  independent, 
autonomous,  and  tributary  principality  ; 

2.  Bulgaria,  south  of  the  Balkans  (Eastern  Roumelia),  was 
retained  under  the  direct  rule  of  the  Porte,  but  was  granted 
administrative  autonomy  ; 

3.  The  Porte  retained  the  right  of  garrisoning  the  frontiers  of 
Eastern  Roumelia,  but  with  regular  troops  only  ; 

4.  The  Porte  agreed  to  apply  to  Crete  the  organic  law  of  1868  ; 

5.  Montenegro  was  declared  independent,  and  the  seaport  of 
Antivari  was  allotted  to  it; 

6.  Servia  was  declared  independent,  and  received  an  accession  of 
territory  ; 

7.  Roumania  was  declared  independent,  and  received  some  islands 
in  the  Danube  in  exchange  for  Bessarabia ; 

8.  Kars.  Batoum,  and  Ardahan  were  ceded  to  Russia ; 

9.  The  Porte  undertook  to  carry  out  without  further  delay  the 
reforms  required  in  Armenia; 

10.  In  the  event  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Porte  not  being  able  to 
agree  upon  a  suggested  rectification  of  frontier,  the  Powers  reserved  to 
themselves  the  right  of  offering  their  mediation. 


112 


CHAPTER  VII 

INDIA 

John  Bright  did  not  care  for  popularity.  He  was 
ever  ready  to  defy  the  public  opinion  of  his  own  country 
in  advocating  what  he  believed  to  be  the  cause  of 
righteousness.  He  pleaded  for  Ireland  when  to  be  her 
champion  was  to  incur  odium  and  almost  disgrace  in 
England.  He  denounced  the  Crimean  War,  and  feared 
not,  in  so  doing,  to  expose  himself  to  the  charge  of 
befriending  the  enemies  of  his  country. 

In  the  case  of  India,  as  in  the  cases  of  Ireland  and  the 
Crimea,  his  sole  aim  was  to  find  out  the  right  path  and  to 
follow  it  whatever  might  happen.  Bright's  sympathies 
were  with  the  native  population  of  India.  He  thought 
that  the  money  spent  on  wars  would  have  been  better 
employed  in  educating  the  people  and  in  improving 
their  social  condition.  He  condemned  the  dual  system 
of  administration  by  the  Board  of  Control  and  the  East 
India  Company,  and  said  that  both  bodies  should  be 
swept  away  and  the  administration  of  the  country 
transferred  to  the  Crown. ^    There  were   persons  who 

^  The  East  India  Company  received  its  first  royal  charter  in 
1600.  The  first  important  Act  regulating  its  administration  in  India 
was  passed  in  1773.     'By  that  Statute  the  Governor  of  Bengal  was 

113  ' 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

were  of  opinion  that  the  Board  of  Control  was  to  blame 
for  all  that  was  wrong  in  the  Indian  Government ;  that 
the  Company  made  and  collected  the  revenue  ;  and  that 
the  Board  spent  it  in  unnecessary  wars.  But  Bright 
said : 

I  have  never  defended  the  Board  of  Control. 
I  believe  everything  the  East  India  Company  has  said 
of  the  Board  of  Control — to  its  discredit ;  and  I  believe 
that  everything  the  Board  of  Control  has  said  to  the 
discredit  of  the  East  India  Company  to  be  perfectly 
true. 

He  considered  that  the  natives  should  be  admitted 

raised  to  the  rank  of  Governor- General ;  and,  in  conjunction  with  his 
Council  of  four  members,  he  was  entrusted  with  the  duty  of  controlling 
the  Governments  of  Madras  and  Bombay,  so  far  as  regarded  questions 
of  peace  and  war  :  a  Supreme  Court  of  Judicature  was  appointed  at 
Calcutta,  to  which  the  judges  were  nominated  by  the  Crown  ;  and  a 
power  of  making  rules  and  regulations  was  conferred  upon  the 
Governor-General  and  his  Council.' — Hunter,  Brief  History  of  the 
Indian  Peoples,  p.  227. 

So  much  for  the  government  in  India. 

'  The  Company's  home  government  [prior  to  1784]  consisted  '  of  the 
Court  of  Directors  and  the  Court  of  Proprietors. 

'  In  1784  a  third  body  was  created  by  Pitt's  India  Bill — namely,  the 
Board  of  Control.  This  Board  consisted  '  at  first  of  Privy  Councillors, 
nominated  by  the  King,  to  the  number  of  six,  and  of  the  Secretaries  of 
State  and  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in  virtue  of  their  of&ce.  The 
limitation  to  the  Privy  Council  for  a  choice  of  members  was  removed 
nine  years  later.  The  President  transacts  the  business  on  ordinary 
occasions  ;  and  his  business  is  to  superintend  the  political  and  territorial 
transactions  of  the  Company  (who  were  then  less  a  political  than  a 
commercial  body),  to  overlook  all  the  correspondence  on  those  subjects, 
and,  if  necessary,  to  overrule  the  proceedings  of  the  Directors.  As  a 
compensation  for  this,  the  Court  of  Proprietors  could  not  interfere  when 
the  Government  and  the  Directors  were  agreed.  The  salaries  and  other 
expenses  of  the  Board  of  Control  were  to  be  paid  by  the  Company.* 
— ^Martineau,  British  Rule  in  India,  p.  158. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  dual  government  to  which  Bright  objected. 
See,  generally,  Lyall,  British  Dominion  in  India. 

114 


INDIA 

to  the  public  service  and  should  be  educated  with  that 
view ;  and,  generally,  he  felt  that  the  administration  of 
the  country  should  be  so  carried  on  as  to  satisfy  the 
people  that  the  English  held  India,  not  for  the  purpose 
of  aggression  and  aggrandisement,  but  to  promote  the 
well-being  of  the  countless  millions  whom  destiny  had 
delivered  into  their  hands.  The  policy  of  the  future,  in 
his  opinion,  should  be  directed,  not  to  the  acquisition  of 
new  territories,  but  to  the  good  government  of  the 
vast  possessions  already  acquired. 

Bright  always  felt  deeply  pained  in  reading  stories 
about  the  ill-treatment  of  natives  by  English  officials. 
Upon  one  occasion  he  read  to  the  House  of  Commons 
the  following  story  told  by  Dr.  Russell,  the  famous 
correspondent  of  the  Times : 

I  went  off  to  breakfast  in  a  small  mosque,  which 
has  been  turned  into  a  salle  a  manger  by  some  officers 
stationed  here,  and  I  confess  I  should  have  eaten  with 
more  satisfaction  had  I  not  seen,  as  I  entered  the 
enclosure  of  the  mosque,  a  native  badly  wounded  on  a 
charpoy,  by  which  was  sitting  a  woman  in  deep  afflic- 
tion.    The  explanation  given  of  this  scene  was,  that 

* [the  name  of  the  Englishman  was  left  blank]  had 

been  licking  two  of  his  bearers  (or  servants),  and  had 
nearly  murdered  them.'  This  was  one  of  the  servants, 
and,  without  knowing  or  caring  to  know  the  causes  of 
such  chastisement,  I  cannot  but  express  my  disgust  at 
the  severity — to  call  it  by  no  harsher  name — of  some  of 
our  fellow-countrymen  towards  their  domestics. 

Commenting  upon  this  statement,  Bright  said  : 

The  reading  of  that  paragraph  gave  me  extreme 
pain.  People  may  fancy  that  this  does  not  matter 
much  ;   but  I  say  it  matters  very  much.     Under  any 

115 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

system  of  Government  you  will  have  Englishmen 
scattered  all  over  India,  and  conduct  like  that  I  have 
just  described,  in  any  district,  must  create  ill  feeling 
towards  England,  to  your  rule,  to  your  supremacy, 
and  when  that  feeling  has  become  sufficiently  extensive, 
any  little  accident  may  give  fire  to  the  train,  and  you 
may  have  calamities  more  or  less  serious,  such  as  we 
have  had  during  the  last  twelve  months.  You  must 
change  all  this  if  you  mean  to  keep  India/ 

Upon  another  occasion  he  read  the  following  extract 
(written  after  the  Mutiny)  from  an  English  paper  [The 
Englishman),  published  in  Calcutta: 

There  is  no  necessity  to  bring  every  Sepoy  to  a  court- 
martial,  and  convict  him  of  mutinous  intentions  before 
putting  him  down  as  guilty.  We  do  not  advocate 
extreme  or  harsh  measures,  nor  are  we  of  those  who 
would  drench  the  land  with  blood  ;  but  we  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying,  that,  were  the  Government  to  order 
the  execution  of  all  these  Sepoys,  they  would  be  legally 
and  morally  justified  in  doing  so.  There  would  be  no 
injustice  done. 

'  ''  No  injustice,'*  '  exclaimed  Bright,  '  ''  would  be 
done'* !  I  ask  the  House  to  consider  that  these  men 
have  committed  no  offence  ;  their  military  functions 
were  suspended  because  it  was  thought  they  were  likely 
to  be  tempted  to  commit  an  offence,  and  therefore  their 
arms  were  taken  from  them ;  and  now  an  Englishman — 
one  of  your  own  countrymen — writing  in  a  newspaper 
published  in  Calcutta,  utters  sentiments  so  atrocious 
as  those  which  I  have  just  read  to  the  House.' 

He  strongly  condemned  the  insolence  of  English 
officials,  high  and  low,  to  natives  of  every  grade. 

'  Only  think,'  he  once  said  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
'  of  a  Governor-General  of  India  writing  to  an  Indian 

ii6 


INDIA 

Prince,  the  ruler  over  many  millions  of  men  in  the 
heart  of  India,  **  Remember  you  are  but  as  the  dust 
under  my  feet/'  Passages  like  these  are  left  out  of 
despatches,  when  laid  on  the  table  of  the  House  of 
Commons  :  it  would  not  do  for  the  Parliament  or  the 
Crown,  or  the  people  of  England  to  know  that  their 
officer  addressed  language  like  this  to  a  Native  Prince ! ' 

There  were  men  in  India  and  in  England  (after  the 
Mutiny)  who  clamoured  for  blood.  Bright  pleaded 
for  justice  and  mercy.  In  a  noble  passage  delivered  in 
the  House  of  Commons  in  1859,  he  said  : 

Look  at  your  responsibilities.  India  is  ruled  by 
Englishmen,  but  remember  that  in  that  unfortunate 
country  you  have  destroyed  every  form  of  government 
but  your  own  ;  that  you  have  cast  the  thrones  of  the 
natives  to  the  ground.  Princely  families,  once  the 
rulers  of  India,  are  now  either  houseless  wanderers  in 
the  land  they  once  called  their  own,  or  are  pensioners 
on  the  bounty  of  those  strangers  by  whom  their 
fortunes  have  been  overthrown.  They  who  were  noble 
and  gentle  for  ages  are  now  merged  in  the  common 
mass  of  the  people.  All  over  those  vast  regions  there 
are  countless  millions,  helpless  and  defenceless,  deprived 
of  their  natural  leaders  and  their  ancient  chiefs,  looking 
with  only  some  small  ray  of  hope  to  that  omnipresent 
and  irresistible  Power  by  which  they  have  been  sub- 
jected. I  appeal  to  you  on  behalf  of  that  people. 
I  have  besought  your  mercy  and  your  justice  for  many 
a  year  past ;  and  if  I  speak  to  you  earnestly  now,  it  is 
because  the  object  for  which  I  plead  is  dear  to  my 
heart.  Is  it  not  possible  to  touch  a  chord  in  the  hearts 
of  Englishmen,  to  raise  them  to  a  sense  of  the  miseries 
inflicted  on  that  unhappy  country  by  the  crimes  and 
the  blunders  of  our  rulers  here  ? 

Bright  was  opposed  to  the  presence  of  a  big  army 

117 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

in  India.  A  big  army,  he  said,  implied  the  maintenance 
of  EngUsh  authority  by  force,  and  he  wished  that  that 
authority  should  be  maintained  by  the  free  consent  of 
a  loyal  population.  The  loyalty  of  the  Indian  people 
could  be  secured  by  a  policy  of  justice  and  conciliation. 
They  were  the  most  docile  and  governable  people  in 
the  world.  Add  to  their  comfort,  happiness,  and 
prosperity ;  respect  their  political  opinions  and  religious 
convictions ;  tolerate  their  customs,  prejudices,  and 
superstitions,  and  they  would  willingly  accept  the  rule 
of  England.  '  They  do  not  like  us,'  he  declared,  '  but 
they  know  not  where  to  turn  if  we  go,'  It  rested  with 
the  English  themselves  to  make  a  loyal  or  disloyal 
India.  If  the  English  policy  were  based  on  plunder 
and  insult,  then  India  would  always  be  in  a  state  of 
smothered  revolt.  If  it  were  based  on  respect  for 
Indian  sentiment  and  the  recognition  of  Indian  claims, 
with  a  sincere  desire  to  advance  the  welfare  of  the 
Indian  nations,  then  there  would  be  peace  and  content- 
ment in  the  land.  He  once  gave  an  illustration  of  the 
kind  of  conduct  which  was  very  likely  to  set  Indian 
feeling  against  England.     He  said  : 

I  would  proclaim  to  the  people  of  India  that  we 
would  hold  sacred  that  right  of  adoption  which  has  pre- 
vailed for  centuries  in  that  country.  It  was  only  the 
other  day  that  I  had  laid  before  me  the  case  of  a  native 
prince  who  has  been  most  faithful  to  England  during 
these  latter  trials.  When  he  came  to  the  throne  at 
ten  years  of  age  he  was  made  to  sign  a  document,  by 
which  he  agreed  that  if  he  had  no  children  his  territories 
should  be  at  the  disposal  of  the  British  Government, 
or  what  was  called  the  paramount  Power.  He  has 
been  married  ;   he  has  had  one  son  and  two  or  three 

ii8 


INDIA 

daughters  ;  but  within  the  last  few  weeks  his  only  son 
has  died.  There  is  grief  in  the  palace,  and  there  is 
consternation  among  the  people,  for  the  fact  of  this 
agreement  entered  into  by  the  boy  of  ten  years  old  is 
well  known  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  country. 
Representations  have  already  been  made  to  this 
country  in  the  hope  that  the  Government  will  cancel 
that  agreement  and  allow  the  people  of  that  State  to 
know  that  the  right  of  adoption  would  not  be  taken 
from  their  Prince  in  case  he  should  have  no  other  son. 
Let  the  Government  do  that,  and  there  is  not  a  corner 
of  India  into  which  that  intelligence  would  not  pene- 
trate with  the  rapidity  of  lightning. 

Bright  condemned  the  policy  of  the  Board  of  Con- 
trol and  the  East  India  Company  as  fatal  alike  to 
the  best  interests  of  India  and  of  England.  It  was  a 
policy  of  constant  wars,  of  incessant  annexation,  and  of 
absolute  neglect  of  the  people  who  were  subjected  to 
English  rule.    He  said  : 

The  people  of  India  are  in  a  state  of  poverty,  and  of 
decay  unexampled  in  the  annals  of  the  country  under 
their  native  rulers.  From  their  poverty  the  Govern- 
ment wrings  a  gross  revenue  of  more  than  £29,000,000 
sterling,  and  out  of  that  ^f 29, 000,000  returns  to  them 
£66,000  per  annum  for  the  purposes  of  education  ! 

It  was  characteristic  of  Bright  that  he  should  say 
something  about  the  English  ecclesiastical  system  in 
India. 

What  is  our  ecclesiastical  establishment  in  India  ? 
Three  bishops  and  a  proportionate  number  of  clergy, 
costing  no  less  than  £101,000  a  year  for  the  sole  use 
of  between  50,000  and  60,000  Europeans,  nearly 
one-half  of  whom,  moreover — taking  the  Army — are 
Roman    Catholics.      I  might  add  that  in  India  the 

119 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Government  showed  the  same  discrimination  of 
which  the  noble  member  for  the  City  of  London  [Lord  J . 
Russell]  seemed  to  approve  so  much  the  other  night,  for, 
although  they  give  to  one  Protestant  bishop  £4000  a 
year,  with  ;fi200  a  year  more  for  expenses  and  a  ship 
at  his  disposal,  and  to  two  other  Protestant  bishops 
between  £2000  and  ^^3000  a  year,  they  give  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  bishop  a  paltry  sum  of  about  ^^250  a 
year.  The  East  India  Company  are  not,  perhaps, 
herein  so  much  to  blame,  seeing  that  they  do  but  follow 
the  example  of  what  is  going  on  in  this  country. 

Upon  one  occasion,  whilst  speaking  on  Indian 
affairs,  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  said  to 
Bright,  '  Produce  your  own  plan.'     Bright  retorted  : 

An  hon.  gentleman  has  asked  me  to  produce  my 
plan.  I  will  not  comply  with  that  request,  but  will 
follow  the  example  of  a  right  hon.  gentleman,  a  great 
authority  in  this  House,  who  once  said,  when  similarly 
challenged,  that  he  should  produce  his  plan  when  he 
was  called  in. 

This  was  said  in  1853 ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  Bright 
did  produce  his  own  plan  in  1858  when  the  territories 
and  powers  of  the  East  India  Company  were  transferred 
to  the  Crown  of  England — a  change  he  had  always 
advocated — when  the  Board  of  Control  was  abolished, 
and  the  administration  of  India  was  placed  in  the  hands 
of  a  Secretary  of  State  assisted  by  a  council  of  fifteen. 
The  title  of  Viceroy  was  substituted  for  the  old  title  of 
Governor-General.  1    The  Act  which  made  this  change 

^  '  By  the  Indian  Councils  Act  (1861)  the  Governor-General's  Council, 
and  also  the  Councils  at  Madras  and  Bombay,  were  augmented  by  the 
addition  of  non- official  members,  either  Natives  or  Europeans,  for 
legislative  purposes  only ;    and  by  another  Act  passed  in  the  same 

120 


INDIA 

(originally  introduced  by  Lord  Palmerston)  was 
carried  into  law  by  the  Government  of  Lord  Derby. 
Bright  spoke  on  the  second  reading  of  the  Bill.  Lord 
Granville,  writing,  after  the  debate,  to  Lord  Canning, 
the  Governor-General,  said  : 

Stanley  introduced  the  second  reading  of  the  third 
Bill  for  India  last  night.  I  am  told  that  he  did  it  well. 
Bright  made  a  remarkable  speech,  more  than  I  thought 
his  brain  would  have  allowed.  He  omitted  the  question 
before  the  House,  but  went  into  the  whole  subject  of 
India.  His  plan  is  to  divide  the  Indian  Empire  into  so 
many  distinct  Presidencies. 

I  shall  state  Bright's  plan  in  Bright's  words : 

I  would  propose  that,  instead  of  having  a  Governor- 
General  and  an  Indian  Empire,  we  should  have  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other.  I  would  propose  that  we  should 
have  Presidencies,  and  not  an  Empire.  If  I  were  a 
Minister — which  the  House  will  admit  is  a  bold  figure 
of  speech — and  if  the  House  were  to  agree  with  me, 
which  is  also  an  essential  point — I  would  propose  to 
have  at  least  five  Presidencies  in  India,  and  I  would 
have  the  governments  of  those  Presidencies  perfectly 
equal  in  rank  and  in  salary.  The  capitals  of  those 
Presidencies  would  probably  be  Calcutta,  Madras, 
Bombay,  Agra,  and  Lahore.  I  will  take  the  Presidency 
of  Madras  as  an  illustration.  Madras  has  a  population 
of  some  20,000,000.  We  all  know  its  position  on  the 
map,  and  that  it  has  the  advantage  of  being  more 
compact,  geographically  speaking,  than  the  other 
Presidencies.  It  has  a  governor  and  a  council.  I 
would  give  to  it  a  governor  and  a  council  still,  but 
would  confine  all  their  duties  to  the  Presidency  of 

year,  High  Courts  of  Judicature  were  constituted  out  of  the  old 
Supreme  Courts  at  the  Presidency  towns.* — Hunter. 

121 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Madras,  and  I  would  treat  it  just  as  if  Madras  was 
the  only  portion  of  India  connected  with  this  country. 
I  would  have  its  finance,  its  taxation,  its  justice,  and 
its  police  departments,  as  well  as  its  public  works  and 
military  departments,  precisely  the  same  as  if  it  were 
a  State  having  no  connexion  with  any  other  part  of 
India,  and  recognised  only  as  a  dependency  of  this 
country.  I  would  propose  that  the  Government  of 
every  Presidency  should  correspond  with  the  Secretary 
for  India  in  England,  and  that  there  should  be  tele- 
graphic communication  between  all  the  Presidencies  in 
India,  as  I  hope  before  long  to  see  a  telegraphic  com- 
munication between  the  office  of  the  noble  lord  [Lord 
Stanley]  and  every  Presidency  over  which  he  presides. 
I  shall  no  doubt  be  told  that  there  are  insuperable  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  such  an  arrangement,  and  I  shall 
be  sure  to  hear  of  the  military  difficulty.  Now,  I  do 
not  profess  to  be  an  authority  on  military  affairs,  but 
I  know  that  military  men  often  make  great , mistakes. 
I  would  have  the  army  divided,  each  Presidency  having 
its  own  army,  just  as  now,  care  being  taken  to  have 
them  kept  distinct ;  and  I  see  no  danger  of  any  con- 
fusion or  misunderstanding,  when  an  emergency  arose, 
in  having  them  all  brought  together  to  carry  out  the 
views  of  the  Government.  There  is  one  question  which 
it  is  important  to  bear  in  mind,  and  that  is  with  regard 
to  the  councils  in  India.  I  think  every  Governor  of  a 
Presidency  should  have  an  assistant  council,  but  differ- 
ently constituted  from  what  they  are  now.  I  would 
have  an  open  council.  .  .  .  What  we  want  is  to  make 
the  governments  of  the  Presidencies  governments  for 
the  people  of  the  Presidencies  ;  not  governments  for  the 
civil  servants  of  the  Crown,  but  for  the  non-official 
mercantile  classes  from  England  who  settle  there,  and 
for  the  20,000,000  or  30,000,000  of  natives  in  each 
Presidency.'  ^ 

^  House  of  Commons,  June  24,  1858. 
122 


INDIA 

In  1859  he  returned  to  the  subject,  and  in  the  course 
of  his  speech  condemned  the  expenditure  of  the  Indian 
administration  : 

I  do  not  in  the  least  agree  with  the  Secretary  for  India 
when  he  says  that  the  gentlemen  of  the  Civil  Service  in 
that  country  are  not  overpaid.  Every  one  knows  that 
they  are  overpaid.  Except  some  very  high-salaried 
bishops  of  whom  we  have  heard,  no  men  are  so  grossly 
overpaid  as  the  officials  of  the  Civil  Service  in  India. 
The  proof  of  this  may  be  found  everywhere.  Look 
at  the  island  of  Ceylon  ;  there  the  duties  are  as  arduous 
and  the  climate  as  unfavourable  as  in  India  ;  yet  the 
Government  does  not  pay  its  officials  there  more  than 
one-half  or  two-thirds  of  the  salaries  they  are  paid  in 
India.  There  are  in  India  itself  many  hundreds  of 
Europeans,  the  officers  of  the  Indian  army,  all  the 
Indian  clergy,  and  missionaries  ;  there  are  also  English 
merchants,  carrying  on  their  business  at  rates  of  profit 
not  much  exceeding  the  profits  made  in  this  country. 
But  the  Civil  Service  of  the  Indian  Government,  like 
everything  privileged  and  exclusive,  is  a  pampered  body ; 
and,  notwithstanding  it  has  produced  some  few  able 
men  who  have  worthily  done  their  duty,  I  do  not  think 
the  Civil  Service  of  India  deserves  the  loud  praise  we 
have  so  frequently  heard  awarded  to  it  by  speakers  in 
this  House. ^ 

He  reverted  to  his  old  plan  of  establishing  Presi- 
dencies and  '  Open  Councils ' : 

There  has  been  no  real  improvement  since  I  have 
sat  in  Parliament  in  the  government  of  India,  and  I 
believe  the  Bill  of  last  year  is  not  one  whit  better  for 
purposes  of  administration  than  any  that  has  gone 
before.  But  I  would  suggest  to  the  right  hon.  gentle- 
man whether  it  would  not  be  a  good  thing  to  bring  in 

^  House  of  Commons,  August  i,  1859. 
123 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

a  Bill  to  extend  and  define  the  powers  of  the  Governors 
of  the  various  Presidencies  in  India  ?  I  do  not  ask 
the  right  hon.  gentlemen  to  turn  out  the  fifteen  gentle- 
men who  assist  him  in  Leadenhall  Street  to  vegetate 
on  their  pensions,  but  I  ask  him  to  go  to  India  and 
to  take  the  Presidency  of  Madras  for  an  instance.  Let 
arrangements  be  made  by  which  that  Presidency  shall 
be  in  a  position  to  correspond  directly  with  him  in  this 
country,  and  let  everyone  connected  with  that  Govern- 
ment of  Madras  feel  that,  with  regard  to  the  interests 
and  the  people  of  that  Presidency,  they  will  be  respon- 
sible for  their  protection.  At  present  there  is  no  sort 
of  tie  between  the  governors  and  governed.  Why 
is  it  that  we  should  not  do  for  Madras  what  has  been 
done  for  the  island  of  Ceylon  ?  I  am  not  about  to  set 
up  the  Council  of  Ceylon  as  a  model  institution  ;  it  is 
far  from  that,  but  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is,  and  you 
will  see  that  it  would  not  be  a  difficult  thing  to  make  the 
change  I  propose.  The  other  day  I  asked  a  gentleman 
holding  an  office  in  the  Government,  and  who  had 
lived  some  years  in  Ceylon,  what  was  the  state  of  the 
Council  ?  He  said  it  was  composed  of  sixteen  members, 
of  whom  six  were  non-official  and  independent,  and  the 
Governors  had  always  a  majority.  He  added  that 
at  the  present  moment  in  that  Council  there  was  one 
gentleman,  a  pure  Cingalese  by  birth  and  blood,  another 
a  Brahmin,  another  a  half-caste  whose  father  was  a 
Dutchman  and  whose  mother  was  a  native,  and  three 
others  who  were  either  English  merchants  or  planters. 
The  Council  has  not  much  prestige,  and  therefore  it 
is  not  easy  to  induce  merchants  in  the  interior  to  be 
members  and  to  undertake  its  moderate  duties  ;  but 
the  result  is  that  this  Cingalese,  this  Brahmin,  this 
half-caste,  and  these  three  Englishmen,  although  they 
cannot  outvote  Sir  H.  Ward,  the  Governor,  are  able 
to  discuss  questions  of  public  interest  in  the  eye  and 
the  ear  of  the  public,  and  to  tell  what  the  independent 

124 


INDIA 

population  want,  and  so  to  form  a  representation  of 
public  opinion  in  the  Council,  which  I  will  undertake  to 
say,  although  so  inefficient,  is  yet  of  high  importance  in 
the  satisfactory  government  of  that  island. 

I  have  had  the  advantage  of  discussing  the  question 
of  Bright's  views  on  India  with  the  distinguished 
Anglo-Indian  Sir  Alfred  Lyall,  who,  as  is  well  known, 
filled  the  position  of  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North- 
West  Provinces  from  1882  to  1887  and  was  a  member 
of  the  Council  of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  India  from 
1888  to  1902  ;  and  he  has  been  so  good  as  to  give  me 
his  opinion  on  the  subject.     He  writes  : 

So  far  as  Bright  desired  decentralisation,  as  the 
best  and  most  effective  system  of  government  in  India, 
I  thoroughly  agree  with  his  principle.  I  have  myself 
advocated  it  for  years  past.  And  since  Bright's  time 
very  considerable  steps  have  been  taken  toward  this  end, 
particularly  during  the  last  two  years.  Every  important 
province  has  now  its  legislative  council,  its  police, 
and  its  assignment  of  revenue,  which  the  local  govern- 
ment can  spend  at  its  discretion,  subject  to  certain 
reservations.  There  is  also  a  High  or  Chief  Court  for 
each  province  ;  and  there  are  strong  municipalities  in 
the  chief  cities.  In  fact,  the  whole  administration  of 
India  has  been  reformed  since  1858-59 ;  for  Bright  was 
speaking  at  a  moment  when  India  was  in  great  disorder  ; 
the  Sepoy  mutiny  had  been  only  partially  suppressed, 
and  the  whole  system  of  government  was  antiquated. 

But  I  hold  that  Bright  carried  his  principle  too  far 
when  he  proposed  to  abolish  the  supreme  Government 
of  India,  and  to  consolidate  the  provinces  as  separate 
States,  '  reorganised  only  as  dependencies  of  this 
country,'  and  corresponding  directly  with  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  for  India  on  all  questions.  That  would 
mean   nothing  less   than   the  government  of  a  vast 

125 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

territory  from  London,  by  a  Secretary  of  State  re- 
sponsible to  the  British  Parhament ;  and  I  am  con- 
vinced that  such  a  system  would  be  impracticable 
and  also  very  unpopular.  The  Governor-General  of 
India  knows  very  little,  as  Bright  says,  of  the 
country  which  he  has  to  rule — a  Secretary  of  State 
must  know  infinitely  less,  because  he  is  not  in  con- 
tact with  the  natives  of  India  and  cannot  freely  consult 
or  converse  with  the  leading  men  of  all  classes  or 
with  the  officials,  Indian  or  European,  who  are  actually 
living  among  them.  A  Secretary  of  State  is  constantly 
liable  to  be  influenced  by  parties  at  home,  who  are 
often,  as  is  proved  by  experience,  representatives  of 
interests  that  are  not  always  the  interests  of  India. 

The  present  aim  of  the  moderate  reaction  among 
the  advanced  native  Indian  politicians  is  not  that  the 
provinces  should  become  dependencies,  which  they  would 
dislike  as  heartily  as  our  colonists  would  dislike  sub- 
jection to  a  Secretary  of  State,  but  that  they  should 
acquire  the  status  of  our  self-governing  colonies — and 
this  would,  I  believe,  be  the  eventual  result  of  Bright's 
system.  I  think  that  they  would  soon  become  impatient 
of  the  remote  authority  of  an  English  Minister,  and, 
moreover,  I  should  anticipate  that  each  province  would 
go  its  own  way,  if  there  were  no  supreme  arbitrator  in 
India  to  maintain  a  general  unity  and  continuity  of 
administrative  policy.  It  is  essential  for  the  prosperity 
and  progress  of  India  that  for  some  time  to  come, 
at  least,  there  should  be  within  the  country  one 
supreme  controlling  authority  for  legislation,  finance, 
and  the  army,  and  I  believe  that  all  the  prudent  and 
practical  leaders  of  native  opinion  would  agree  that 
this  is  necessary.  They  would  all  prefer  to  have  this 
authority  in  India,  not  in  London.  They  don't  wish 
to  be  ruled  by  a  Parliamentary  party  in  England ;  they 
desire  that  the  chief  of  their  government,  the  visible 
representative  of  distant  sovereignty,  shall  be  in  their 

.  126 


INDIA 

own  country,  where  they  can  bring  to  bear  upon  him 
the  weight  of  their  needs  and  grievances.  You  will 
remember  that  the  Indian  people  are  not  yet  a  nation  : 
they  are  divided  in  every  province  by  sharp  differences 
of  race  and  religion.  At  this  moment  something 
like  political  animosity  between  Mohammedans  and 
Hindus  is  widening  these  dissensions ;  under  local 
governments  they  might  become  unmanageable.  I 
notice  that  Bright  proposes  to  keep  the  army  of  each 
Presidency  carefully  distinct.  I  will  not  enlarge  upon 
the  military  objections  to  this  arrangement,  except 
to  say  that  these  objections  would  be  very  soon 
discovered  when  forces,  with  no  previous  unity  of 
discipline  or  command,  were  called  together  on  an 
emergency.  You  will  bear  in  mind  that  the  old  Presi- 
dential armies  have  now  been  absorbed  into  one  Indian 
army,  and  that  the  administrative  provinces  or  local 
governments  are  much  more  numerous  than  in 
Bright' s  day. 

But  I  will  not  trouble  you  with  a  long  dissertation 
on  the  general  question.  I  will  only  observe  that  I 
know  of  no  parallel  or  precedent  in  political  history 
for  the  system  of  administering  a  great  civilised  popula- 
tion, as  dependencies,  from  a  distant  and  foreign 
country  which  has  not  broken  down.  In  Colonial 
annals  it  has  always  failed,  as  with  our  American 
colonies  and  the  Spanish  dependencies  in  that  con- 
tinent. The  truth  is  that  India  in  1910  is  entirely 
different  from  India  in  1858  ;  and  I  conjecture  that  if 
Bright  were  speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  to-day, 
his  views  would  be  proportionately  altered.  His 
speeches  of  1858-59  disclose  at  various  points  his  in- 
evitable lack  of  accurate  understanding  of  the  prob- 
lems which  he  handled  ;  and  his  comparison,  in  the 
speech  of  August  i,  of  India  with  the  small  island  of 
Ceylon  is  a  good  illustration  of  this  deficiency,  though 
he  was  quite  right  in  urging  that  something  like  the 

127 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Ceylon  Council  might  be  introduced  into  the  provinces 
of  India.     This  is  just  what  has  since  been  done. 

Bright's  views  about  India  were,  I  think,  based  on 
the  belief  that  the  English  dominion  would  sooner  or 
later  come  to  an  end  ;  and  he  thought  that  the  adminis- 
tration should  be  so  conducted  as  to  fit  the  Indian 
peoples,  when  that  event  happened,  to  take  care  of 
themselves.  He  put  the  case  clearly  in  a  speech 
delivered  at  Manchester  in  December  1877.  Having 
restated  his  views  in  favour  of  the  establishment  of 
Presidencies,  which  should  ultimately  grow  into  inde- 
pendent States,  he  said  : 

While  the  Government  [of  these  Presidencies]  would 
necessarily  or  probably  be  much  better,  you  would 
teach  the  people  of  these  Presidencies  to  consider  them- 
selves, as  generations  passed  on,  as  the  subjects  and 
the  people  of  that  State.  And  thus  if  the  time  should 
come — and  it  wiU  come  ;  I  agree  with  Lord  Lawrence 
that  no  man  who  examines  the  question  can  doubt 
that  some  time  it  must  come — when  the  power  of 
England,  from  some  cause  or  other,  is  withdrawn 
from  India,  then  each  one  of  these  States  would  be  able 
to  sustain  itself  as  a  compact,  as  a  self-governing  com- 
munity. You  would  have  five  or  six  great  States  there, 
as  you  have  five  or  six  great  States  in  Europe  ;  but 
that  would  be  a  thousand  times  better  than  our  being 
withdrawn  from  it  now  when  there  is  no  coherence 
amongst  those  twenty  nations,  and  when  we  should 
find  the  whole  country,  in  all  probability,  lapse  into 
chaos  and  anarchy,  and  into  sanguinary  and  intermin- 
able warfare.  I  believe  that  it  is  our  duty  not  only  to 
govern  India  well  now  for  our  own  sakes  and  to  satisfy 
our  own  conscience,  but  so  to  arrange  its  government 
and  so  to  administer  it  that  we  should  look  forward 
to  the  time — which  may  be  distant,  but  may  not  be 

128 


INDIA 

SO  remote — when  India  will  have  to  take  up  her  own 
government  and  administer  it  in  her  own  fashion. 
I  say  he  is  no  statesman — he  is  no  man  actuated  with 
a  high  moral  sense  with  regard  to  our  great  and  terrible 
moral  responsibility — who  is  not  willing  thus  to  look 
ahead,  and  thus  to  prepare  for  circumstances  which 
may  come  sooner  than  we  think,  and  sooner  than  any 
of  us  hope  for,  but  which  must  come  at  some  not  very 
distant  date. 

Some  of  the  reforms  which  Bright  advocated  m  the 
administration  of  India  have,  to  some  extent,  been 
carried  out. 

In  November  1884  Bright  wrote  to  an  Indian 
correspondent : 

You  speak  of  my  services  to  your  country.  I  wish 
I  could  have  done  more  for  your  vast  population,  now 
connected  and  subject  to  the  rule  of  my  country.  It 
is  to  me  a  great  mystery  that  England  should  be  in 
the  position  she  now  is  in  relation  to  India.  I  hope 
it  may  be  within  the  ordering  of  Providence  that 
ultimately  good  may  arise  from  it.  I  am  convinced 
that  this  can  only  come  from  the  most  just  govern- 
ment which  we  are  able  to  confer  upon  your  countless 
millions,  and  it  will  always  be  a  duty  and  a  pleasure 
to  me  to  help  forward  any  measure  that  may  tend  to 
the  well-being  of  your  people.  I  think  I  perceive  an 
increased  interest  here  in  your  welfare,  and  a  growing 
intelligence  and  influence  among  the  natives  of  India 
in  anything  that  is  calculated  to  promote  their  wise 
and  just  government.  The  principles  which  have 
distinguished  the  administration  of  Lord  Ripon  seem 
to  me  to  be  those  which  promise  to  be  beneficial  to 
you  and  creditable  to  us.  I  hope  every  future 
Governor-General  may  merit  the  confidence  of  our 
Government  at  home  and  of  the  vast  population  whose 

129  ^ 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

interests  may  be  committed  to  his  charge.  I  thank 
you  for  the  gift  of  your  volumes.  I  shall  value  them 
as  you  desire,  and  as  a  proof  that  in  the  little  I  have 
been  able  to  do  my  small  services  have  been  appre- 
ciated by  those  for  whom  my  sympathy  and  good 
intentions  have  been  so  strongly  excited.  So  far  as 
I  know  how  to  do  so,  I  would  be  as  much  a  friend  of 
India  as  of  England. 

I  am,  yours,  &c., 

John  Bright. 

It  remains  yet  to  be  seen  whether  the  independent 
States  which  he  favoured  will  ultimately  grow  up, 
either  by  the  consent  of  the  people  of  England,  or  by 
the  force  of  circumstances  which  they  cannot  control. 


Note  to  Chapter  VII 

The  Mutilation  of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes'  Despatches 

The  story  of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes  is  well  known. 
He  was  English  Resident  at  Kabul  from  1836  to  1841. 
Trouble  arose  between  England  and  Afghanistan. 
Burnes  desired  peace,  and  sent  despatches  to  Lord 
Palmerston  (the  Foreign  Minister)  in  that  spirit. 
Palmerston  was  bent  on  war,  and  when  asked  to  produce 
the  despatches  of  Burnes  laid  them  on  the  table  of  the 
House  of  Commons  in  a  mutilated  state,  so  as  to  pervert 
their  meaning  and  give  them  rather  a  warlike  than  a 
peaceful  colour.  On  March  19,  1861,  Mr.  Dunlop 
brought  the  subject  before  the  House  of  Commons, 
when  Bright  made  a  vehement  attack  on  Palmerston. 
The  speech  is  an  admirable  specimen  of  Bright's  invec- 
tive.    He  began  : 

130 


INDIA 

When  the  noble  lord  rose,  I  observed,  from  his 
countenance  and  from  his  language,  that  he  seemed  to 
be  suffering  from  the  passion  of  anger.  [Viscount 
Palmerston  :  '  Not  much  '].  '  Not  much,'  the  noble 
lord  says.  I  admit  that  in  the  course  of  his  speech  he 
calmed  down  ;  but  he  was  so  far  led  from  what  I  think 
was  a  fair  course  as  to  charge  the  hon.  and  learned 
gentleman  who  introduced  this  motion  with  making  a 
violent  and  vituperative  speech,  and  he  spoke  of  '  that 
vocabulary  of  abuse  of  which  the  hon.  gentleman 
appeared  to  be  master.' 

Having  shown  that  Dunlop  spoke  with  great 
moderation,  and  stated  the  case  with  ability  and  fair- 
ness, he  went  on  : 

The  fact  is  the  noble  lord  felt  himself  hit.  The 
noble  lord  is  on  his  trial  in  this  case.  .  .  .  After  a 
few  sentences  the  noble  lord  touched  upon  the 
case  of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes,  and  he  made  a  very 
faint  denial  of  the  misrepresentations  which  are 
charged  against  the  Government  of  that  day  in  the 
case  of  that  gentleman.  But  he  went  on  to  say  that, 
after  all,  these  things  were  of  no  importance  ;  that 
what  was  in,  or  what  was  left  out,  was  unimportant. 
But  I  should  like  to  ask  the  noble  lord  what  was  the 
object  of  the  minute  and  ingenious,  and  I  will  say 
unmatched,  care  which  was  taken  in  mutilating  the 
despatches  of  a  gentleman  whose  opinions  were  of  no 
importance  and  whose  writings  could  not  make  the 
slightest  difference  either  to  the  question  or  to  the 
opinions  of  any  person  concerned  ?  The  noble  lord, 
too,  has  stooped  to  conduct  which,  if  I  were  not  in  this 
House,  I  might  describe  in  language  which  I  could  not 
possibly  use  here  without  being  told  that  I  was  trans- 
gressing the  line  usually  observed  in  discussions  in  this 
assembly.  The  noble  lord  has  stooped  so  low  as  to 
heap  insult,  throughout  the  whole  of  his  speech,  upon 

131  ^*. 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

the  memory  of  a  man  who  died  in  the  execution  of  what 
he  beHeved  to  be  his  pubHc  duty — a  duty  which  was 
thrust  upon  him  by  the  mad  and  obstinate  poHcy  of  the 
noble  lord ;  and  whilst  his  blood  cries  to  Heaven 
against  that  poUcy,  the  noble  lord,  during  a  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour's  speech  in  this  House,  has  scarcely 
ceased  to  heap  insult  on  his  memory. 

The  next  sentence  is  delightful  in  its  delicacy  of 
touch.  It  is  the  cut  of  a  rapier,  not  the  blow  of  a 
bludgeon : 

What  the  noble  lord  told  us  throughout  his  speech 
was  that  Sir  Alexander  Burnes  was  a  man  of  the 
greatest  simplicity  of  character.  I  could  not,  however 
complimentary  I  were  disposed  to  be,  retort  that  upon 
the  noble  lord. 

Having  pointed  out  that  though  Palmerston  was 
now  inclined  to  depreciate  the  services  of  Burnes,  still 
he  had  retained  the  unfortunate  official  for  several 
years  at  Kabul ;  and  having  reminded  the  House  that 
they  were  not  there  that  night  to  discuss  the  Afghan 
War  or  questions  of  Indian  policy,  but  to  find  out  who 
had  mutilated  the  despatches  of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes, 
he  continued,  determined  to  keep  Palmerston  to  the 
point : 

It  is  worth  while  knowing  whether  there  was,  and 
is,  a  man  in  high  position  in  the  Government  here,  or  in 
India,  who  had  so  low  a  sense  of  honour,  and  of  right, 
that  he  could  offer  to  this  House  mutilated,  false, 
forged  despatches,  and  opinions  of  a  public  servant  who 
lost  his  life  in  the  public  service.  Conceive  any  man 
at  this  moment  in  India  engaged,  as  many  have  been 
during  the  last  three  years,  in  perilous  services — con- 
ceive that  any  man  should  know  that  to-morrow, 
or  next  week,  or  any  time  this  year,  he  may  lay  his 

132 


INDIA 

bones  in  that  distant  land,  and  that  six  months  after- 
wards there  may  be  laid  on  the  table  of  this  House  by 
the  noble  lord  at  the  head  of  the  Government,  or  by 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  India,  letters  or  despatches 
of  his  from  which  passages  have  been  cut  out,  and  into 
which  passages  have  been  inserted  in  which  words  have 
been  so  twisted  as  wholly  to  divert  and  distort  his 
meaning,  and  to  give  to  them  a  meaning,  it  may  be, 
utterly  the  contrary,  to  that  which  his  original  despatch 
intended  to  convey.  I  cannot  conceive  any  anticipa- 
tion more  painful  or  more  bitter,  more  likely  to  eat  into 
the  heart  of  any  man  engaged  in  the  service  of  his 
country  in  a  distant  land. 

In  the  next  passage  he  comes  to  still  closer  quarters 
with  the  Prime  Minister.  It  is  an  excellent  example  of 
the  style  in  which  Bright  hits  out  from  the  shoulder 
when  thoroughly  aroused : 

It  is  admitted,  and  the  noble  lord  has  not  flatly 
denied  it — he  cannot  deny  it — he  knows  it  as  well  as 
the  hon.  and  learned  member  for  Greenock  [Mr.  Dunlop] 
— he  knows  it  as  well  as  the  very  man  whose  hand  did  the 
evil — he  knows  there  have  been  garbling,  mutilation, 
practically  and  essentially  falsehood  and  forgery,  in  these 
despatches  which  have  been  laid  before  the  House.  Why 
was  it  refused  to  give  the  original  despatches  when  they 
were  asked  for  in  1842  by  the  hon.  member  for  Inverness- 
shire  [Mr.  H.  Baillie],  and  when  they  were  asked  for  at  a 
later  period  by  the  hon.  member  for  Sheffield  [Mr.  Had- 
field] .  Why  was  it  that  the  originals  were  so  consistently 
withheld  ?  That  they  have  been  given  now,  I  suppose, 
is  because  those  who  were  guilty  of  the  outrage  of  the 
faith  of  Parliament  thought,  as  twenty  years  had  elapsed, 
that  nobody  would  give  himself  the  trouble  to  go  into 
the  question,  and  that  no  man  would  be  so  earnest  as 
my  hon.  friend  the  member  for  Greenock  in  bringing 
the  question  before  the  notice  of  Parliament. 

133 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

My  hon.  friend  the  member  for  Sheffield  [Mr. 
Hadfield]  informs  me  that  it  was  the  noble  lord  the 
member  for  King's  Lynn  [Lord  Stanley]  who  consented 
to  the  production  of  the  original  despatches  when  he 
was  in  office.  I  was  not  aware  of  that  fact ;  but  I  am 
free  here  to  tender  him  my  thanks  for  the  course  which 
he  took.  I  am  sure  he  is  the  last  man  whom  any  one 
would  suspect  of  being  mixed  up  in  any  transaction  of 
this  kind,  except  with  a  view  to  give  the  House  and  the 
country  full  information  with  regard  to  it.  I  say,  then, 
avoiding  all  the  long  speech  of  the  noble  lord,  that  the 
object  of  the  committee  is  to  find  out  who  did  this  evil 
thing — who  placed  upon  the  table  of  the  House  in- 
formation which  was  knowingly  false,  and  despatches 
that  were  actually  forged — because  if  you  add  to  or 
detract  from,  or  so  change  a  coin,  or  note,  or  deed,  as 
to  make  any  of  them  bear  a  meaning  contrary  to  its 
original  and  intended  meaning,  of  course  you  are  guilty 
of  such  an  act  as  I  have  described,  and  that  is  precisely 
what  somebody  has  done  in  the  despatches  which  we 
are  now  discussing.  I  say  an  odious  offence  has  been 
committed  against  the  House,  and  against  the  truth  ; 
and  what  we  want  to  know  is,  who  did  it  ? 

In  the  next  passage  he  practically  accuses  Palmer- 
ston  of  having  done  the  deed  : 

Now,  will  the  noble  lord  be  candid  enough — he  does 
not  think  there  is  anything  wrong — he  says  there  is  not 
much — it  is  very  trifling — that  Sir  Alexander  Burnes' 
opinions  are  not  worth  much — supposing  it  to  be  so — 
for  the  sake  of  argument  let  me  grant  it ;  but  if  it  is  a 
matter  of  no  importance,  will  the  noble  lord  be  so 
candid  as  to  tell  us  who  did  it  ?  When  Lord  Broughton 
was  examined  before  the  Official  Salaries  Committee 
some  years  ago,  he,  as  the  noble  lord  is  aware,  said  that 
he  took  upon  himself,  as  President  of  the  Board  of 
Control  at  the  time,  the  entire  responsibihty  of  the 

134 


INDIA 

Afghan  War.  The  noble  lord  now  at  the  head  of  the 
Government  [Lord  Palmerston]  was  then  a  member  of 
the  India  Board,  and  so  I  believe  was  the  noble  lord  the 
member  for  the  City  of  London  [Lord  John  Russell] .  But 
the  noble  lord  at  the  head  of  the  Government  was  also 
Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs.  Now,  I  do  not  think  I 
am  wrong  in  supposing  that  this  question  lies  between 
the  noble  lord  the  Prime  Minister  and  Lord  Broughton, 
once  a  member  of  this  House.  This  thing  was  not 
done  by  some  subordinate  who  cannot  be  found  out. 

My  hon.  and  learned  friend  says  '  it  has  been  done 
with  marvellous  care,  and  even  with  so  much  ability 
that  it  must  have  been  done  by  a  man  of  genius.'  Of 
course  there  are  men  of  genius  in  very  objectionable 
walks  of  life  ;  but  we  know  that  the  noble  lord  at  the 
head  of  the  Government  is  a  man  of  genius  ;  if  he  had 
not  been  he  would  not  have  sat  on  that  bench  for  the 
last  fifty  years.  And  we  know  that  Lord  Broughton  is 
a  man  of  many  and  varied  accomplishments.  And 
once  more  I  ask  the  noble  lord  to  tell  us  who  did  it. 
He  knows  who  did  it.  Was  it  his  own  right  hand,  or 
was  it  Lord  Broughton 's  right  hand,  or  was  it  some 
clever  secretary  in  the  Foreign  Office  or  in  the  India 
Office  who  did  this  work  ? 

I  say  the  House  has  a  right  to  know.  We  want  to 
know  that.  We  want  to  drag  the  delinquent  before  the 
public.  This  we  want  to  know,  because  we  wish  to 
deter  other  Ministers  from  committing  the  like  offence  ; 
and  we  want  to  know  it  for  that  which  most  of  all  is 
necessary,  to  vindicate  the  character  and  honour  of 
Parliament.  Nothing  can  sink  Parliament  to  a  lower 
state  of  degradation  and  baseness  than  that  it  should 
permit  Ministers  of  the  Crown  to  lay  upon  the  table, 
upon  questions  involving  the  sacrifice  of  ^f 20,000,000 
of  money  and  20,000  lives,  documents  which  are  not 
true — which  slander  our  public  servants,  and  which 
slander  them  most  basely  when  they  are  dead  and  are 

135 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

not  here  to  answer.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  gentle- 
men of  England  in  this  House — upon  that  side  of  the 
House  or  upon  this — will  ever  consent  to  sit  down  with 
a  case  proved  so  clearly  as  this  is  without  directing 
the  omnipotent  power  and  eye  of  Parliament  into  the 
matter. 

Mr.  Dunlop's  motion  was  opposed  by  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  and  rejected  by  the  House. 


136 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    AMERICAN    CIVIL    WAR 

In  February  1861  the  Southern  States — the  slave 
States — of  the  great  American  RepubUc  seceded  from 
the  Union,  South  CaroHna  leading  the  way.  A  con- 
stitution was  formed  for  the  new  Confederacy,  and 
Jefferson  Davis  became  its  President.  On  Febru- 
ary 18  Davis  declared  that  the  separate  independence 
of  the  Confederacy  should,  if  necessary,  be  defended  by 
the  sword. 

In  March  Abraham  Lincoln  entered  into  office  as 
President  of  the  United  States.  Referring  to  the  con- 
dition of  things  in  the  South,  he  said  that  he  would 
not  interfere — he  had  not  the  power  to  interfere — with 
the  institution  of  slavery  wherever  it  existed  ;  but 
he  denied  the  right  of  any  State  to  secede  from  the 
Union  ;  such  secession  was  an  act  of  rebellion. 

There  were  hopes  at  first  that  the  differences 
between  North  and  South  might  be  amicably  ad- 
justed ;  but  these  hopes  were  soon  dispelled.  South 
Carolina  was  the  first  State  to  secede  ;  she  was  the 
first  State  to  begin  the  war.  While  each  State  had  the 
management  of  its  own  local  affairs,  the  Federal 
Government  {inter  alia)  controlled  the  army  and  navy 
and  coast  defences.     Accordingly,  Fort  Sumter,  in  the 

137 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

harbour  of  Charleston,  was  garrisoned  by  Federal  troops. 
In  April  the  secessionists  of  South  Carolina  attacked  and 
captured  it.  Immediately  afterwards  President  Lincoln 
called  for  75,000  volunteers  to  crush  the  rebellion  and 
declared  the  Southern  ports  under  blockade. 

On  May  8  Lord  John  Russell  stated  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that,  after  consultation  with  the  law  officers, 
the  Government  had  decided  to  acknowledge  the 
belligerent  rights  of  the  South.  This  decision,  so 
hastily  arrived  at,  gave  umbrage  to  the  North.  As 
the  war  went  on  the  relations  between  England  and 
the  United  States  grew  less  and  less  friendly.  In 
England  the  ruling  and  influential  classes  were  all  in 
favour  of  the  South.  Only  a  small  minority  of  English- 
men were  in  sympathy  with  the  North.  At  the  head 
of  this  minority  stood  John  Bright.  To  him  the  war 
was  a  question  of  slavery.  The  victory  of  the  South 
meant  the  maintenance  of  that  foul  institution  ;  the 
victory  of  the  North  its  destruction.  But  apart  from 
the  question  of  slavery.  Bright  was  warmly  attached  to 
the  American  Republic,  for  he  thought  that  its  govern- 
ment rested,  more  perhaps  than  the  government  of 
any  country  in  the  world,  on  the  free  choice  of  a  free 
people.  In  December  1861  Abraham  Lincoln  pre- 
sented Bright  with  two  copies  of  a  portrait  of  himself. 
On  one  of  these  copies  Bright  wrote  : 

And  if  there  be  on  Earth  and  among  men  any  right 
Divine  to  govern,  surely  it  rests  with  the  Ruler  so  chosen 
and  so  appointed. — December  4th,  1861. 

Many  people  in  England,  indeed  the  majority  of  the 
English  people,  thought  that  in  the  war  which  had  just 

138 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

commenced  the  great  Republic  of  the  West  would 
go  to  pieces.  Perhaps  English  public  opinion  was 
well  expressed  in  a  letter  which  Dr.  Russell,  the 
eminent  war  correspondent  of  the  Times,  wrote  to 
the  American  diplomat,  John  Bigelow,  in  April  1861. 
Dr.  Russell  said : 

I  fear,  my  friend,  you  are  going  to  immortal  smash. 
That  little  lump  of  revolutionary  leaven  has  at  last  set 
to  work  in  good  earnest,  and  the  whole  mess  of  social 
and  political  life  is  fermenting  unhealthily. 

Of  course  you  all  try  to  disguise  your  trouble  and 
your  danger  by  talking  of  the  lesson  to  the  world's 
moral  force,  no  bloodshed,  &c.,  &c.  But  the  world 
will  only  see  in  it  all  the  failure  of  republican  institu- 
tions in  time  of  pressure  as  demonstrated  by  all 
history — that  history  which  America  vainly  thought 
she  was  going  to  set  right  and  re-establish  on  new 
grounds  and  principles.^ 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  majority  of  English 
people  who  thought  that  the  Republic  would  be 
smashed  wished  it  to  be  smashed.  They  said  it 
would  be  '  better  for  us.'  This  view  of  the  case 
Bright  vehemently  condemned.  Speaking  at  Roch- 
dale in  November  1861,  he  said  : 

It  has  been  said,  '  How  much  better  it  would  be  ' — 
not  for  the  United  States,  but — '  for  us,  that  these 
States  should  be  divided.'  I  recollect  meeting  a 
gentleman  in  Bond  Street  one  day  before  the  Session 
was  over.  He  was  a  rich  man  and  one  whose  voice 
is  much  heard  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  but  his 
voice  is  not  heard  when  he  is  on  his  legs,  but  when  he 

^  The  Retrospections  of  John  Bigelow,  vol.  i.  p.  347. 

139 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

is  cheering  other  speakers  ;  and  he  said  to  me,  '  After 
all,  this  is  a  sad  business  about  the  United  States  : 
but  still  I  think  it  very  much  better  that  they  should 
be  split  up.  In  twenty  years ' — or  in  fifty  years,  I  forget 
which  it  was — '  they  will  be  so  powerful  that  they  will 
bully  all  Europe.'  And  a  distinguished  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons — distinguished  there  by  his  elo- 
quence, distinguished  more  by  his  many  writings— I 
mean  Sir  Edward  Bulwer  Lytton — he  did  not  exactly 
express  a  hope,  but  he  ventured  on  something  like  a 
prediction,  that  the  time  would  come  when  there  would 
be,  I  do  not  know  how  many,  but  about  as  many  inde- 
pendent States  on  the  American  continent  as  you  can 
count  upon  your  fingers.  There  cannot  be  a  meaner 
motive  than  this  I  am  speaking  of,  in  forming  a  judg- 
ment on  this  question — that  it  is  /  better  for  us  ' — 
for  whom  ?  the  people  of  England,  or  the  Government 
of  England  ? — that  the  United  States  should  be  severed, 
and  that  the  North  American  continent  should  be  as  the 
continent  of  Europe  is,  in  many  States,  and  subject  to 
all  the  contentions  and  disasters  which  have  accom- 
panied the  history  of  the  States  of  Europe.  I  should 
say  that,  if  a  man  had  a  great  heart  within  him,  he 
would  rather  look  forward  to  the  day  when,  from  that 
point  of  land  which  is  habitable  nearest  to  the  Pole,  to 
the  shores  of  the  Great  Gulf,  the  whole  of  that  vast 
continent  might  become  one  great  confederation  of 
States — without  a  great  army  and  without  a  great 
navy,  not  mixing  itself  up  with  the  entanglements  of 
European  politics,  without  a  custom-house  inside, 
through  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  its  territory, 
and  with  freedom  everywhere,  equality  everywhere, 
law  everywhere,  peace  everywhere — such  a  confedera- 
tion would  afford  at  least  some  hope  that  man  is  not 
forsaken  of  Heaven,  and  that  the  future  of  our  race 
may  be  better  than  the  past. 

In  November  1861  an  event  occurred  which,   as 

140 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

everybody  knows,  nearly  led  to  war  between  England 
and  the  United  States.     The  Confederate  Government 
sent   two   envoys   (Slidell    and    Mason)    to    Europe, 
the    one   to  England,   the  other   to  France,   for  the 
purpose  of  persuading  these  Powers  to  recognise  the 
independence  of  the  South.     The  envoys  sailed  from 
Havana  in  the  English  mail  steamer  Trent,  bound  for 
Southampton.     About   two   hundred  and  fifty  miles 
from  Havana  the  Trent  was  stopped  by  the  United 
States   sloop   of   war   the    San  Jacinto    (commanded 
by     Captain     Wilkes)  ;     the     envoys     were    seized, 
transferred    to    the    San   Jacinto,    brought    back   to 
America    and    imprisoned    in     a    fort     in     Boston 
harbour.     The  affair  raised  a  storm  of  indignation  in 
England  ;   and  the  friends  of  the  South  were  specially 
active  in  denouncing  the  '  outrage  '  which  had  been 
committed  on  the  English  flag.     Lord  John  Russell 
wrote  to  the  American  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Seward, 
demanding  the  release  of  the  prisoners.     But  as  a 
matter  of  fact  Abraham  Lincoln  had  condemned  the 
action  of  Captain  Wilkes  the  moment  he  heard  of  it. 
He  said,  '  This  is  the  very  thing  the  British  captains 
used   to   do.     They   claimed   the   right   of   searching 
American  ships  and  carrying  men  out  of  them.     That 
was  the  cause  of  the  war  of  1812.     Now,  we  cannot 
abandon  our  own  principles.     We  shall  have  to  give 
these  men  up  and  apologise  for  what  we  have  done.' 
Mr.   Seward  had  no   difficulty  in   granting  Lord 
John  Russell's  request.     He  wrote  :    '  It  will  be  seen 
that   this    Government    cannot    deny   the   justice   of 
the  claim  presented  to  us,  in  this  respect,  upon  its 
merits.      We  are  asked  t#  d©  te  the  British  nation 

141 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

what  we  have  always  insisted  all  nations  ought  to  do 
unto  us/  He  added  that  the  prisoners  should  be 
*  cheerfully  liberated/  They  were  immediately  liber- 
ated, and  sailed  for  Europe  in  January  1862.  The 
affair,  however,  strained  the  relations  between  England 
and  the  United  States  almost  to  the  snapping-point. 
Englishmen  declared  that  America  wanted  to  make 
war  on  them  ;  and  Lord  Palmerston,  who,  as  has  been 
truly  said,  was  ever  ready  to  wave  the  English  flag 
in  anybody's  face,  blustered  a  good  deal  in  his  usual 
fashion/  Bright,  while  condemning  the  conduct  of 
Captain  Wilkes,  was  calm  and  dignified;  and  in  a 
great  speech  delivered  at  Rochdale  in  December, 
counselled  his  fellow-countrymen  to  keep  cool  in  the 
crisis.  Dealing  with  the  statement  that  the  United 
States  desired  war  with  England,  he  said  :     - 

Now,  our  great  advisers  of  the  Times  newspaper 
have  been  persuading  people  that  this  is  merely  one  of 
a  series  of  acts  which  denote  the  determination  of  the 
Washington  Government  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  the 
people  of  England.  Did  you  ever  know  anybody  who 
was  not  very  nearly  dead-drunk  who,  having  as  much 
upon  his  hands  as  he  could  manage,  would  offer  to 
fight  everybody  about  him  ?  Do  you  believe  that  the 
United  States  Government,  presided  over  by  President 
Lincoln,  so  constitutional  in  all  his  acts,  so  moderate 
as  he  has  been — representing  at  this  moment  that 
great  party  in  the  United  States,  happily  now  in  the 
ascendancy,  which  has  always  been  especially  in  favour 

^  We  now  know  that  the  original  despatch  to  Lord  Lyons  (the 
Enghsh  ambassador  at  Washington)  was  so  altered  and  softened  by  the 
Prince  Consort  and  Queen  Victoria  as  to  help  considerably  in  averting 
the  danger  of  war. — Letters  of  Queen  Victoria  (Popular  edition),  vol.  iii. 
pp.  469-470. 

142 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

of  peace,  and  especially  friendly  to  England — do  you 
believe  that  such  a  Government,  having  now  upon  its 
hands  an  insurrection  of  the  most  formidable  character 
in  the  South,  would  invite  the  armies  and  the  fleets  of 
England  to  combine  with  that  insurrection,  and,  it 
might  be,  to  render  it  impossible  that  the  Union  should 
ever  again  be  restored  ? 

Cobden  was  not  present  at  the  Rochdale  meeting, 
but  he  wrote  afterwards  to  his  friend  :        """^"^ 

Midhurst:  Dec.  6,  1861. 

Your  admirable  address  cannot  fail  to  do  good. 
But  it  is  a  mad  world  we  live  in.  Here  I  am  in  the 
midst  of  extracts  from  Hansard,  &c.,  to  show  up  the 
folly  or  worse  of  the  men  who  have  been  putting  us  to 
millions  of  expense  to  protect  us  from  a  coup  de  main 
from  France,  and  now  we  see  the  same  people  willing 
to  rush  into  war  with  America,  and  leave  us  exposed  to 
this  crafty  and  dangerous  neighbour.^  Might  we  not 
be  justified  in  turning  hermits,  letting  our  beards  grow, 
and  returning  to  our  caves  ? 

On  January  3,  1862,  Bright  wrote  to  Mr.  John 
Bigelow,  then  American  consul  in  Paris : 

Rochdale  :  Jan.  3,  1862. 

Dear  Mr.  Bigelow, — I  ought  to  have  acknow- 
ledged your  most  kind  letter  sooner,  but  I  have  felt 
almost  incapable  of  writing  while  so  dark  a  cloud  has 
been  over  us.  From  letters  I  have  read  from  you, 
your  Ministers  at  Vienna  and  St.  Petersburg,  and 
from  several  of  your  consuls'  and  countrymen  in 
England,-"  I  am  able  to  hope  that  my  speech  will  have 

^  'Palmerston  was  urging  an  enormous  expenditure  for  the  coast 
defences  of  England  from  the  predatory  instincts  of  the  Bonaparte  with 
whom  he  was  flirting  for  an  aUiance  to  disciphne  the  United  States.' — 
Retrospections  of  John  Bigelow. 

143 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

some  good  effect  in  the  United  States,  unless  it  be  lost 
in  the  confusion  caused  by  the  hostile  attitude  assumed 
by  the  Press  and  Government  of  England.  It  is  a 
great  mistake  to  imagine  that  our  people  are  against 
your  people.  Our  Government  is  made  up  of  men 
drawn  from  the  aristocratic  families — it  is  therefore 
aristocratic,  and,  from  a  natural  instinct,  it  must  be 
hostile  to  your  greatness  and  to  the  permanence  of 
your  institutions.  Our  rich  men  take  their  course 
mainly  from  the  aristocracy,  to  whom  they  look  up  ; 
and  our  Press,  in  London  especially,  is  directly  in- 
fluenced by  the  Government,  and  the  two  sections  of 
the  aristocracy  for  which  it  writes  ;  we  have  also  our 
tremendous  military  services,  with  all  their  influence 
on  the  Government  and  on  opinion.  But  we  have 
other  and  better  influences — the  town  populations,  the 
Nonconformist  congregations,  the  quiet  and  religious 
people,  and  generally,  I  believe,  the  working  men — 
these  have  done  much  to  put  down  the  war  cry,  and  to 
make  a  very  considerable  demonstration  in  favour  of 
moderation,  and,  if  needful,  of  arbitration. 

The  feeling  here  is  strongly  in  favour  of  peace,  and 
we  are  hoping  for  good  news  by  the  boat  on  Monday 
next.  If  this  difficulty  is  surmounted,  I  think  the 
disposition  here  will  be  rendered  much  more  favourable 
to  the  North  than  it  has  been  of  late.  The  religious 
and  anti-slavery  element  has  been  stirred,  and  every 
week  shows  how  likely  your  struggle  is  to  be  the  de- 
struction of  the  slave  system.  .  .  . 

I  am  living  upon  faith — faith  that  God  will  not  per- 
mit the  perpetuation  of  slavery  on  your  continent,  and 
that  your  grand  experiment  of  freedom  and  self- 
government  will  not  fail.  I  believe  there  is  no  other 
Government  in  the  world  that  would  have  survived 
the  perils  which  yours  passed  through  from  March  i860 
to  April  1861 ;  and  when  I  see  the  order  and  unitj^ 
exhibited  in  all  the  Northern  States,  I  cannot  believe 

144 


THE  AMERICAN  ClVlL  WAR 

in  the  crash  which  ignorant  and  evil-minded  men  here 
have  foretold  and  evidently  wish  for. 

I  need  hardly  tell  you  that  Mr.  Cobden  and  I  have 
done  air  we  could  by  writing  to  our  intimate  friends  in 
this^  Government  to  urge  them  to  moderation  and  peace. 
The  Prime  Minister  [Lord  Palmerston]  is  old,  and 
steeped  in  the  traditions  of  past  generations ;  he  has 
made  his  only  reputation  by  the  pretence  that  he  is 
plucky  and  instant  in  the  defence  of  English  honour, 
and  he  is  in  that  condition  just  now  that  a  revival 
of  popularity  is  very  needful  for  him.  I£  foreign 
affairs  are  tranquil,  his  Government  must  break"  up. 
Bluster  and  occasionally  war  even  have  been  resorted 
to  by  Ministers  in  past  times  to  sustain  a  tottering 
statesman  or  a  falling  party,  and  I  am  not  sure  that 
some  of  our  present  Ministers  have  a  morality  superior 
to  that  of  their  predecessors. 

Motley  the  historian,  writing  to  Bigelow  from  the 
United  States  Legation  at  Vienna,  said  : 

I  won't  characterise  the  conduct  of  England,  as 
exhibited  in  its  Press,  with  two  honourable  exceptions. 
Daily  News  and  Star,  and  in  its  public  speeches  with  the 
single  exception  of  John  Bright — to  whom  I  feel  much 
more  disposed  to  give  a  vote  of  thanks  than  to  Captain 
Wilkes — its  attitude  towards  us  will  not  be  one  for 
honourable  men  to  feel  proud  of,  one  of  these  days.^ 

Every  one  knows  the  story  of  the  Alabama.  The 
Confederate  Government  had  fitted  out  several  cruisers 
to  prey  upon  the  commerce  of  the  North.  Among 
these  cruisers  were  the  Sumter,  the  Savannah,  the 
Nashville,  the  Petrel,  and  the  Florida, 

But  the  most  famous  of  them  all  was  the  Alabama. 

^  Bigelow. 

145  ' 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

The  Alabama  was  built  at  Birkenhead  in  the  dockyard 
of  the  famous  shipbuilders  Messrs.  Laird  and  Co. 

It  soon  became  a  fact  of  public  knowledge  that  the 
Messrs.  Laird  were  building  a  cruiser  for  the  service  of 
the  Confederate  States.  Mr.  Adams,  the  United  States 
ambassador  in  London,  wrote  to  Lord  John  Russell  on 
the  subject,  describing  the  character  of  the  ship  and 
requesting  the  Foreign  Secretary  to  give  orders  forbid- 
ding her  to  leave  the  Mersey.  But  Lord  John  Russell 
was  sceptical.  He  asked  for  proofs  to  show  that  the 
ship  was  a  war  vessel  intended  for  the  Confederate 
Government.  Mr.  Adams  sent  him  the  opinion  of  an 
eminent  lawyer,  Sir  Robert  Collier,  stating  that  the 
vessel  ought  to  be  detained  and  that  the  case  was 
unquestionably  an  infringement  of  the  Foreign  Enlist- 
ment Act,  '  which  if  not  enforced  on  this  occasion  is 
little  better  than  a  dead  letter.' 

Lord  John  still  remained  sceptical.  He  asked  for 
more  proofs  ;  Mr.  Adams  sent  him  more.  Then  he 
consulted  the  law  officers  of  the  Crown.  They  con- 
firmed the  opinion  of  Sir  Robert  Collier,  and  said 
that  the  ship  should  not  be  allowed  to  leave  the  Mersey, 
At  length  Lord  John  was  roused  to  activity.  On 
July  29,  1862,  he  wired  to  the  Custom  House 
authorities  at  Liverpool  to  prevent  the  ship  from 
sailing.  But  the  ship  had  sailed  the  previous  day. 
Lord  John  was  too  late.  The  Alabama  (900  tons 
burden,  300  horse-power)  was  commanded  by  an  officer 
of  the  AmeAf ak  Navy,  Captain  Semmes,  but  her  crew 
were  chiefly  English  ;  *  her  guns  and  her  gunners  were 
English  ;  many  of  the  latter  belonged  to  the  Royal 
Naval  Reserve,  and  were  actually  receiving  pay  from 

146 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

the  English  Government ;  she  sailed  under  the  English 
flag,  was  welcomed  in  EngHsh  harbours,  and  never  was 
in,  or  even  saw,  a  Confederate  port/  ^ 

For  one  year  she  ran  her  course  and  made  her 
name  terrible  on  the  seas.  She  destroyed  some 
seventy  merchant  ships  belonging  to  the  North,  and 
wherever  she  went  left  behind  her  a  track  of  ruin. 
Sometimes,  in  the  night,  a  United  States  merchant- 
man saw  in  the  distance  a  blaze  of  light,  which  only 
too  clearly  suggested  that  most  tragic  of  all  calamities, 
a  ship  on  fire  on  the  high  seas.  The  merchantman 
hastened  to  the  rescue — to  find  indeed  a  ship  on 
fire,  but  also  to  find  the  Alabama  in  the  background 
ready  to  sink  her  too.  When  Englishmen  complained 
of  the  bitterness  shown  by  the  Northern  States 
towards  England  during  the  war,  Bright  reminded 
them  of  the  operations  of  the  Alabama.  He 
said  : 

She  hoists  the  English  flag  when  she  wants  to 
come  alongside  a  ship  ;  she  sets  a  ship  on  fire  in  the 
night,  and  when,  seeing  fire,  another  ship  bears  down 
to  lend  help,  she  seizes  it,  and  pillages  and  burns  it. 
I  think  that,  if  we  were  citizens  of  New  York,  it  would 
require  a  little  more  calmness  than  is  shown  in  this 
country  to  look  at  all  this  as  if  it  was  a  matter  with 
which  we  had  no  concern. ^ 

The  case  has  been  well  put  in  the  '  Bigelow  Papers ' : 

You  wonder  why  we  're  hot,  John  ? 

Your  mark  wuz  on  the  guns, 
The  neutral  guns,  that  shot,  John, 

Our  brothers  an*  our  sons. 

*  McCarthy,  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 

*  Speech  at  Birmingham,  December  i8,  1862. 

147  I.  a 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Mr.  Laird  was  very  proud  of  the  Alabama,  and  he 
once  said  in  the  House  of  Commons,  amid  the  cheers  of 
the  war  party,  that  he  would  rather  be  known  as  the 
'  builder  of  a  dozen  Alahamas  '  than  be  a  man  who,  like 
Bright,  had  set  class  against  class. ^    Bright  replied  : 

Then  I  come  to  the  last  thing  I  shall  mention — 
to  the  question  of  the  ships  which  have  been  preying 
upon  the  commerce  of  the  United  States.  I  shall 
confine  myself  to  that  one  vessel,  the  Alabama.  She 
was  built  in  this  country ;  all  her  munitions  of  war 
were  from  this  country ;  almost  every  man  on  board 
her  was  a  subject  of  Her  Majesty.  She  sailed  from 
one  of  our  chief  ports.  She  is  known  to  have  been 
built  by  a  firm  in  which  a  member  of  this  House  was, 
and  I  presume  is,  interested.  Now,  sir,  I  do  not  com- 
plain— I  know  that  once,  when  I  referred  to  this 
question  two  years  ago,  when  my  hon.  friend  the 
member  for  Bradford  brought  it  forward  in  this  House, 
the  hon.  member  for  Birkenhead  [Mr.  Laird]  was 
excessively  angry — I  do  not  complain  that  the  member 
for  Birkenhead  has  struck  up  a  friendship  with  Captain 
Semmes,  who  may  probably  be  described,  as  another 
sailor  once  was  of  similar  pursuits,  as  being  '  the 
mildest  mannered  man  that  ever  scuttled  ship.'  There- 
fore, I  do  not  complain  of  a  man  who  has  an  acquaint- 
ance with  that  notorious  person,  and  I  do  not  complain, 
and  did  not  then,  that  the  member  for  Birkenhead 
looks  admiringly  upon  the  greatest  example  which 
men  have  ever  seen  of  the  greatest  crime  which  men 
have  ever  committed.  I  do  not  complain  even  that 
he  shall  applaud  that  which  is  founded  upon  a  gigantic 
traffic  in  living  flesh  and  blood,  a  traffic  into  which  no 
subject  of  this  realm  can  enter  without  being  deemed 
a  felon  in  the  eyes  of  our  law  and  punished  as  such. 

^  McCarthy.     Bright' s  Speeches,  vol.  i.  p.  134. 
148 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

But  what  I  do  complain  of  is  this,  that  the  hon.  gentle- 
man the  member  for  Birkenhead,  a  magistrate  of  a 
county,  a  deputy-lieutenant — whatever  that  may  be 
— a  representative  of  a  constituency,  and  having  a 
seat  in  this  ancient  and  honourable  assembly — that  he 
should,  as  I  believe  he  did,  if  concerned  in  the  building 
of  this  ship,  break  the  law  of  his  country  by  driving 
us  into  an  infraction  of  International  Law,  and  treat- 
ing with  undeserved  disrespect  the  Proclamation  of 
neutrality  of  the  Queen. 

The  Alabama  at  length  met  her  fate.  On  June  19, 
1864,  she  was  five  miles  off  Cherbourg.  The  United 
States  cruiser  Kearsarge  came  in  sight,  attacked  the 
Southern  pirate,  and  sunk  her  in  an  hour  and  a  half. 
Captain  Semmes  was  saved  by  an  English  yacht.  The 
sequel  to  the  story  of  the  Alabama  may  be  briefly  told. 
While  the  war  continued  the  United  States  could  not 
square  accounts  with  England.  But  when  the  war 
was  over,  the  Government  of  Washington  demanded 
reparation  from  the  Government  of  St.  James'  for  the 
injuries  done  to  American  commerce  by  the  ship  which 
Messrs.  Laird  had  built.  The  question  was  referred  to 
arbitration.  The  arbitrators  gave  their  award  at 
Geneva,  1872.  They  decided  in  favour  of  America  and 
mulcted  the  English  Government  in  damages  to  the 
tune  of  ;f3, 000,000.1 

In  the  first  year  of  the  war  things  went  badly  with 
the  North.  The  war  party  in  England  rejoiced,  and 
gladly  foretold  the  speedy  downfall  of  the  Republic. 
Even    Mr.    Gladstone    indulged     in     this     palatable 

^  The  damages  were  awarded  in  respect  of  the  injuries  done  by  other 
Southern  ships  of  war  as  well  as  by  the  Alabama.  The  English  repre- 
sentative, Sir  Alexander  Cockbum,  agreed  to  the  decision  only  as  it 
affected  the  Alabama. 

149 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

prophecy.  But  Bright's  faith  in  the  North  never 
wavered.  He  declared  that  faith  in  a  memorable 
passage  of  noble  eloquence : 

I  do  not  blame  any  man  here  who  thinks  the  cause 
of  the  North  hopeless  and  the  restoration  of  the  Union 
impossible.  It  may  be  hopeless  ;  the  restoration  may 
be  impossible.  You  have  the  authority  of  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  on  that  point.  The  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  as  a  speaker,  is  not  surpassed  by  any 
man  in  England,  and  he  is  a  great  statesman  ;  he 
believes  the  cause  of  the  North  to  be  hopeless  ;  that 
their  enterprise  cannot  succeed. 

Well,  he  is  quite  welcome  to  that  opinion,  and  so  is 
anybody  else.  I  do  not  hold  that  opinion  ;  but  the 
facts  are  before  us  all,  and,  as  far  as  we  can  discard 
passion  and  sympathy,  we  are  all  equally  at  liberty  to 
form  our  own  opinion.  But  what  I  do  blame  is  this. 
I  blame  men  who  are  eager  to  admit  into  the  family 
of  nations  a  State  which  offers  itself  to  us  based  upon 
a  principle,  I  will  undertake  to  say,  more  odious  and 
more  blasphemous  than  was  ever  heretofore  dreamed 
of  in  Christian  or  Pagan,  in  civilised  or  in  savage  times. 
The  leaders  of  this  revolt  propose  this  monstrous 
thing — that  over  a  territory  forty  times  as  large  as 
England,  the  blight  and  curse  of  slavery  shall  be  for 
ever  perpetuated. 

I  cannot  believe,  for  my  part,  that  such  a  fate  will 
befall  that  fair  land,  stricken  though  it  now  is  with  the 
ravages  of  war.  I  cannot  believe  that  civilisation,  in 
its  journey  with  the  sun,  will  sink  into  endless  night  in 
order  to  gratify  the  ambition  of  the  leaders  of  this 
revolt,  who  seek  to 

Wade  through  slaughter  to  a  throne, 
And  shut  the  gates  of  mercy  on  mankind. 

I  have  another  and  a  far  brighter  vision  before  my  gaze. 

150 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

It  may  be  but  a  vision,  but  I  will  cherish  it.  I  see  one 
vast  confederation  stretching  from  the  frozen  North 
in  unbroken  line  to  the  glowing  South,  and  from  the 
wild  billows  of  the  Atlantic  westward  to  the  calmer 
waters  of  the  Pacific  main — and  I  see  one  people,  and 
one  language,  and  one  law,  and  one  faith,  and,  over  all 
the  wide  Continent,  the  home  of  freedom,  and  a  refuge 
for  the  oppressed  of  every  race  and  of  every  clime/ ^ 

On  March  26,  1863,  Bright  addressed  a  great 
meeting  in  St.  James'  Hall,  convened  by  the  Trades' 
Unions  of  LQndon,^._After  the  meetmg^e  wmtejoj^r. 
Bigelow  : 

Rochdale  :  April  8,  '63. 

.  .  .  The  Trades'  Unionist  meeting  was  a  remarkable 
affair — I  have  seen  no  meeting  on  the  American  ques- 
tion more  remarkable.  I  endeavoured  to  point  out  the 
principle  involved  in  your  struggle,  and  the  interest 
which  workmen  and  artisans  have  in  it.  The  speeches 
of  the  workmen  were  very  good  and  logical,  and  I 
think  the  effect  of  the  meeting  on  the  most  numerous 
class  in  this  country  must  be  considerable.  .  .  . 

You  will  have  heard  that  our  Government  have 
seized  a  ship  building  in  Liverpool  for  the  Southern 
conspirators,  and  that  they  are  manifesting  some 
activity  in  regard  to  other  vessels  building  for  the  same 
respectable  concern.  I  hope  they  are  in  earnest ;  but 
I  never  trust  them  in  anything — there  is  much  more 
of  baseness  than  of  magnanimity  in  the  policy  of  our 
ruling  class.  But  I  hear  that  Mr.  Adams  observes  a 
sensible  change  in  the  tone  and  conduct  of  our  Foreign 
Office  towards  his  Government,  and  I  hope  this  is  true 
and  that  the  change  is  sincere.  I  am  sure  that  if  the 
news  from  the  States  becomes  more  and  more  favour- 
able to  your  Government,  then  our  Government  will 

*  Speech  at  Birmingham,  December  18,  1862. 

151 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

become  more  and  more  civil  to  yours.  There  will  be 
plenty  of  dirt  for  our  people  (our  Government)  to  eat 
if  you  should  succeed  in  restoring  the  Union,  and  I  shall 
not  make  a  wry  face  if  they  have  to  eat  it. 

Seeing  what  you  can  do  in  ships  and  men  and  funds, 
you  will  be  much  more  thought  of  in  this  country  here- 
after— not  more  loved  or  less  hated,  but  perhaps  more 
feared. 

On  April  17,  1863,  Charles  Sumner  wrote  to 
Bright : 

Washington  :  April  17,  1863. 

Two  days  ago  the  President  sent  for  me  to  come 
to  him  at  once.  When  I  arrived,  he  said  that  he  had 
been  thinking  of  a  matter  on  which  we  had  often  spoken, 
the  way  in  which  English  opinion  should  be  directed, 
and  that  he  had  drawn  up  a  resolution  embodying  the 
ideas  which  he  should  hope  to  see  adopted  by  public 
meetings  in  England. 

I  enclose  the  resolution,  in  his  autograph,  as  he  gave 
it  to  me.  He  thought  it  might  serve  to  suggest  the 
point  which  he  regarded  as  important. 

The  resolution  ran  as  follows,  in  Abraham  Lincoln's 
handwriting  :  ■— ™«.«««.^ 

Whereas,  while  heretofore  States  and  Nations 
have  tolerated  slavery,  recently,  for  the  first  [time]  in 
the  world,  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  construct  a 
new  nation  upon  the  basis  of  and  with  the  primary 
and  fundamental  object  to  maintain,  enlarge,  and  per- 
petuate human  slavery,  therefore. 

Resolved,  that  no  such  embryo  State  should 
ever  be  recognised  by,  or  admitted  into,  the  family 
of  Christian  and  civilised  nations ;  and  that  all 
Christian  and  civilised  men  everywhere  should,  by  all 

152 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

lawful  means,  resist  to  the  utmost  such  recognition  or 
admission.^ 

During  the  height  of  the  war,  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy 
tells  us,  he  heard  an  eminent  writer  on  political 
economy  laying  down  the  law  to  Bright  on  the  im- 
possibility of  the  Federal  Government  coming  success- 
fully out  of  the  struggle  : 

The  economist  arrayed  facts  and  figures  together 
in  the  most  appalling  way,  with  the  object  of  proving 
that  even  if  the  Northern  States  should  come  out  of 
the  struggle  with  a  technical  victory,  it  must  be  only 
to  sink  into  complete  national  bankruptcy.  When  he 
found  himself  growing  exhausted  for  want  of  breath, 
he  closed  his  exposition  with  the  words,  '  Now, 
Mr,  Bright,  what  have  you  to  say  to  that  ? '  Bright 
paused  for  a  moment  as  if  he  were  thinking  the  whole 
matter  out,  and  then  blandly  replied,  '  Well,  my 
opinion  is  that  the  Northern  States  will  manage 
somehow  to  muddle  through.'  ^ 

On  June  30,  1863,  Mr.  Roebuck,  Liberal  member 
for  Sheffield,  brought  forward  a  motion  in  the  House  of 
Commons  in  favour  of  the  recognition  of  the  South. 
Bright  denounced  the  proposal  in  a  speech  characterised 
by  humour,  argument,  and  invective.  His  attack  on 
Roebuck  was  in  his  happiest  vein,  and  the  reference  to 
'  tear  'em  ' — which  was  a  summing-up  of  Roebuck's 
character  for  pugnacity  and  '  cussedness  ' — convulsed 
the  House.     He  began  : 

*  .  .  .  The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  [Mr. 
Gladstone],  who  is  known  not  to  be  very  zealous  in 

1  This  resolution,  with  the  extract  from  Sumner's  letter  copied  in 
Bright's  handwriting,  is  framed  at  the  house  of  Bright's  daughter, 
Mrs.  Clark,  Millfield,  Street,  Somerset.  ^  Reminiscences. 

153 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

the  particular  line  of  opinion  that  I  have  adopted, 
addressed  the  hon.  gentleman  in  the  smoothest  language 
possible,  but  still  he  was  obliged  to  charge  him  with  the 
tone  of  bitter  hostility  which  marked  his  speech. 

'  On  a  recent  occasion  the  hon.  member  addressed 
some  members  of  his  constituency — I  do  not  mean  in  his 
last  speech,  I  mean  in  the  speech  in  August  last  year — 
in  which  he  entered  upon  a  course  of  prophecy  which, 
like  most  prophecies  in  our  day,  does  not  happen  to 
come  true.  But  he  said  then  what  he  said  to-night, 
that  the  American  people  and  Government  were  over- 
bearing. He  did  not  tell  his  constituents  that  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  had,  almost  during 
the  whole  of  his  lifetime,  been  conducted  by  his  friends 
of  the  South.  He  said  that,  if  they  were  divided,  they 
would  not  be  able  to  bully  the  whole  world ;  and  he 
made  use  of  these  expressions  :  ''  The  North  will  never 
be  our  friends ;  of  the  South  you  can  make  friends — 
they  are  Englishmen — they  are  not  the  scum  and 
refuse  of  the  world.'' ' 

Mr.  Roebuck,  '  Allow  me  to  correct  that  statement. 
What  I  said  I  now  state  to  the  House,  that  the  men  of 
the  South  were  Englishmen,  but  that  the  army  of  the 
North  was  composed  of  the  scum  of  Europe.' 

Bright.  '  I  take,  of  course,  that  explanation  of  the 
hon.  and  learned  gentleman,  with  this  explanation 
from  me,  that  there  is  not,  so  far  as  I  can  find,  any 
mention  near  that  paragraph,  and  I  think  there  is  not 
in  the  speech  a  single  word,  about  the  army.' 

Mr.  Roebuck.   '  I  assure  you  I  said  that.' 

Bright.  'Then  I  take  it  for  granted  that  the  hon. 
and  learned  gentleman  said  that,  or  that  if  he  said 
what  I  have  read  he  greatly  regrets  it.' 

Mr.  Roebuck.  '  No,  I  did  not  say  it.' 

Bright.  '  The  hon.  and  learned  gentleman  in  his 
resolution  speaks  of  other  Powers.  But  he  has  uncere- 
moniously got  rid  of  all  the  Powers  but  France,  and  he 

154 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

comes  here  to-night  with  a  story  of  an  interview  with  a 
man  whom  he  describes  as  the  great  ruler  of  France 
— tells  us  of  a  conversation  with  him — asks  us  to  accept 
the  lead  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French  on,  I  will  under- 
take to  say,  one  of  the  greatest  questions  that  ever  was 
submitted  to  the  British  Parliament.  But  it  is  not 
long  since  the  hon.  and  learned  gentleman  held  very 
different  language.  I  recollect  in  this  House,  only 
about  two  years  ago,  that  the  hon.  and  learned  gentle- 
man said,  *'  I  hope  I  may  be  permitted  to  express 
in  respectful  terms  my  opinion,  even  though  it  should 
affect  so  great  a  potentate  as  the  Emperor  of  the 
French.  I  have  no  faith  in  the  Emperor  of  the  French." 
On  another  occasion  the  hon.  and  learned  gentleman 
said — not,  I  believe,  in  this  House — ''  I  am  still  of 
opinion  that  we  have  nothing  but  animosity  and  bad 
faith  to  look  for  from  the  French  Emperor.''  And  he 
went  on  to  say  that  still,  though  he  had  been  laughed 
at,  he  adopted  the  patriotic  character  of  ''  Tear  'em/' 
and  was  still  at  his  post. 

'  And  when  the  hon.  and  learned  gentleman  came 
back,  I  think  from  his  expedition  to  Cherbourg,  does 
the  House  recollect  the  language  he  used  on  that 
occasion — language  which,  if  it  expressed  the  senti- 
ments which  he  felt,  at  least  I  think  he  might  have  been 
content  to  have  withheld  ?  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  refer- 
ring to  the  salutation  between  the  Emperor  of  the 
French  and  the  Queen  of  these  kingdoms,  he  said, 
'*  When  I  saw  his  perjured  lips  touch  that  hallowed 
cheek."  And  now,  sir,  the  hon.  and  learned  gentleman 
has  been  to  Paris,  introduced  there  by  the  hon.  member 
for  Sunderland,  and  he  has  sought  to  become,  as  it  were, 
in  the  palace  of  the  French  Emperor,  a  co-conspirator 
with  him  to  drag  this  country  into  a  policy  which  I 
maintain  is  as  hostile  to  its  interests  as  it  would  be 
degrading  to  its  honour.' 

Having  shown  that  the  recognition  of  the  South 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

would  be  injurious  to  the  moral,  material  and  political 
interests  of  England,  Bright  then  presented  to  the 
House  what  to  him  was  the  real  issue  in  the  case — 
slavery  or  no  slavery.  Those  who  know  of  Bright's 
love  for  children — '  he  was  never  so  happy  as  when  he 
was  with  children,'  one  of  his  relatives  said  to  me — will 
appreciate  the  following  passage  : 

Now,  I  will  ask  the  right  hon.  gentleman  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer,  and  those  who  are  of  opinion 
with  him  on  this  question  of  slaughter  in  the  American 
war — a  slaughter  which  I  hope  there  is  no  hon.  member 
here,  and  no  person  out  of  this  House,  that  does  not  in 
his  calm  moments  look  upon  with  grief  and  horror — to 
consider  what  was  the  state  of  things  before  the  war. 
It  was  this  :  that  every  year  in  the  slave  States  of 
America  there  were  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
children  born  into  the  world — born  with  the  badge  and 
the  doom  of  slavery — born  to  the  liability  by  law,  and 
by  custom,  and  by  the  devilish  cupidity  of  man — 
to  the  lash  and  to  the  chain  and  to  the  branding-iron, 
and  to  be  taken  from  their  families  and  carried  they 
know  not  where. 

I  want  to  know  whether  you  feel  as  I  feel  upon  this 
question.  When  I  can  get  down  to  my  home  from  this 
House,  I  find  half  a  dozen  little  children  playing  upon 
my  hearth.  How  many  members  are  there  who  can 
say  with  me,  that  the  most  innocent,  the  most  pure, 
the  most  holy  joy  which  in  their  past  years  they  have 
felt,  or  in  their  future  years  they  have  hoped  for,  has 
not  arisen  from  contact  and  association  with  our 
precious  children  ?  Well,  then,  if  that  be  so — if,  when 
the  hand  of  death  takes  one  of  those  flowers  from  our 
dwelling,  our  heart  is  overwhelmed  with  sorrow  and 
our  household  is  covered  with  gloom — what  would  it 
be  if  our  children  were  brought  up  to  this  infernal 

156 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

system — one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  them 
every  year  brought  into  the  world  in  these  slave  States, 
amongst  these  '  gentlemen/  amongst  this  *  chivalry/ 
amongst  these  men  that  we  can  make  our  friends  ? 

Bright  concluded  thus  : 

We  know  the  cause  of  this  revolt,  its  purposes  and 
its  aims.  Those  who  made  it  have  not  left  us  in  dark- 
ness respecting  their  intentions,  but  what  they  are  to 
accomplish  is  still  hidden  from  our  sight ;  and  I  will 
abstain  now,  as  I  have  always  abstained  with  regard  to 
it,  from  predicting  what  is  to  come.  I  know  what  I 
hope  for — and  what  I  shall  rejoice  in — but  I  know 
nothing  of  future  facts  that  will  enable  me  to  express  a 
confident  opinion.  Whether  it  will  give  freedom  to  the 
race  which  white  men  have  trampled  in  the  dust,  and 
whether  the  issue  will  purify  a  nation  steeped  in  crimes 
committed  against  that  race,  is  known  only  to  the 
Supreme.  In  His  hands  are  alike  the  breath  of  man 
and  the  life  of  States.  I  am  willing  to  commit  to  Him 
the  issue  of  this  dreaded  contest ;  but  I  implore  of  Him, 
and  I  beseech  this  House,  that  my  country  may  lift 
nor  hand  nor  voice  in  aid  of  the  most  stupendous  act 
of  guilt  that  history  has  recorded  in  the  annals  of 
mankind. 

Mr.  Roebuck's  resolution  was  never  put  to  a  division. 
Before  it  had  been  moved  the  Southern  General,  Lee,  had 
successfully  invaded  Maryland  (June  14,  1863).  While 
it  was  under  consideration  the  Federal  General,  Meade, 
defeated  Lee  at  Gettysburg  ^  and  drove  him  out  of 
Maryland  (July  1-3).  Immediately  afterwards  (July  4) 
Grant  took  Vicksburg.  The  news  of  these  Northern 
victories  shocked  the  war  party  in  England,  and  the 

*  This  battle  has  sometimes  been  called  indecisive,  but  the  result  of 
it  was  that  Lee  evacuated  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland. 

157 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

idea  of  obtaining  the  recognition  of  the  South  vanished. 
The  debate  on  Mr.  Roebuck's  resolution  was  adjourned 
but  never  resumed.  Meade  and  Grant  not  only  defeated 
the  Southern  armies  ;  they  also  defeated  Mr.  Roebuck's 
operations  in  the  House  of  Commons.  In  1863  two 
ironclads  were  built  at  Birkenhead  for  the  Confederate 
Government.  In  September  they  were  ready  to  leave 
the  Mersey.  Mr.  Adams  warned  Lord  John  Russell 
(September  5)  of  the  fact,  saying,  '  It  would  be  super- 
fluous in  me  to  point  out  to  your  lordship  that  this  is  an 
act  of  war.'  Lord  John  Russell  rephed,  September  8  : 
'  Lord  John  Russell  presents  his  compliments  to  Mr. 
Adams,  and  has  the  honour  to  inform  him  that  in- 
structions have  been  issued  which  will  prevent  the 
departure  of  the  two  ironclad  vessels  from  Liverpool.' 

The  Northern  victories  had  sharpened  the  intelH- 
gence  of  the  Foreign  Secretary. 

During  the  year  1864  the  North  continued 
'  muddling  through.'  The  defeat  of  the  Confederates 
by  Sherman  at  Atlanta  on  July  22  was  perhaps  the 
beginning  of  the  end.  On  August  8  Farragut  destroyed 
the  Confederate  flotilla  near  Mobile.  On  November  13 
Sherman  destroyed  Atlanta  and  began  his  march 
through  Georgia  to  Savannah.  On  December  21 
Sherman  entered  Savannah. 

In  February  1865  the  Confederates  evacuated 
Charleston.  On  April  2  Sheridan  completely  defeated 
Lee  after  three  days'  fighting  at  Five  Forks.  Lee  fell 
back  in  full  retreat,  evacuating  Richmond,  which  was 
occupied  by  Grant.  Sheridan  followed  up  Lee,  and 
again  defeated  him  on  April  6  at  Sailor's  Creek. 
On  April  9  Lee  surrendered,  with  the  army  of  Northern 

158 


^xmi.CLjihtrtyBi'^l^h.  try  Oaica4^, 


THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

Virginia,  to  Grant  at  Appomatox.  On  April  12  the 
Confederates  evacuated  Mobile.  On  April  14  the 
Federal  flag  waved  once  more  over  Fort  Sumter. 
The  war  was  over ;  the  South  was  beaten,  the  Union 
preserved,  the  institution  of  slavery  destroyed. 
All  that  Bright  had  wished  for  and  worked  for  was 
accomplished.  Two  years  aftet  the  termination 
of  the  war  a  breakfast  was  given  to  the  famous 
abolitionist  WiUiam  Lloyd  Garrison  at  St.  James's 
Hall  (June  29,  1867).  Bright  occupied  the  chair, 
and  in  the  course  of  a  brief  and  charming  speech  he 
summed  up  the  results  of  the  war  in  a  few  eloquent 
sentences : 

The  position  in  which  I  am  placed  this  morning  is 
one  very  unusual  for  me,  and  one  that  I  find  somewhat 
difficult ;  but  I  consider  it  a  signal  distinction  to  be 
permitted  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  the  proceedings 
of  this  day,  which  are  intended  to  commemorate  one 
of  the  greatest  of  the  great  triumphs  of  freedom,  and 
to  do  honour  to  a  most  eminent  instrument  in  the 
achievement  of  that  freedom.  There  may  be,  perhaps, 
those  who  ask  what  is  this  triumph  of  which  I  speak. 
To  put  it  briefly,  and,  indeed,  only  to  put  one  part  of  it, 
I  may  say  that  it  is  a  triumph  which  has  had  the  effect 
of  raising  4,000,000  of  human  beings  from  the  very 
lowest  depth  of  social  and  political  degradation  to  that 
lofty  height  which  men  have  attained  when  they 
possess  equality  of  rights  in  the  first  country  on  the 
globe.  More  than  this,  it  is  a  triumph  which  has  pro- 
nounced the  irreversible  doom  of  slavery  in  all  countries 
and  for  all  time. 

When  I  had  the  privilege,  some  few  months  ago,  of 
calling  at  One  Ash,  Rochdale,  Mrs.  Albert  Bright  was 

159 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

so  good  as  to  show  me  a  walking-cane  which  had 
belonged  to  Abraham  Lincoln  and  was  now  a  cherished 
relic  in  the  home  of  the  Brights.  How  came  it  there  ? 
On  the  gold  head  of  the  cane  there  is  this  inscription  : 
'  J.  A.  McClernand  to  the  Hon.  A.  Lincoln,  June  1857  ; 
on  the  ferule  are  the  words  :  *  Presented  to  the  Rev. 
J  as.  Smith,  D.D.,  late  pastor  of  First  Presbyterian 
Church,  Springfield,  Ills.,  by  the  family  of  the  late 
President  Lincoln,  in  memoriam  of  the  high  esteem  in 
which  he  was  held  by  him  and  them  as  their  pastor  and 
dear  friend,  27th  April,  1868.' 

In  1871  the  cane  was  bequeathed  by  Mr.  Smith  to 
Bright.     The  clause  of  the  will  ran  : 

I  give,  devise,  and  bequeath  unto  John  Bright,  Esq., 
member  of  the  British  House  of  Commons,  and  to  his 
heirs,  the  gold-mounted  staff,  or  cane,  which  belonged 
to  the  deceased  President  Lincoln  of  the  United  States, 
and  presented  to  me  by  the  deceased's  widow  and  family 
as  a  mark  of  the  President's  respect ;  which  staff  is 
to  be  kept  as  an  heirloom  in  the  family  of  the  said  John 
Bright,  as  a  token  of  the  esteem  which  the  late  President 
felt  for  him  because  of  his  unwearied  zeal  and  defence 
of  the  United  States  in  suppressing  the  civil  rebellion  of 
the  Southern  States. 

To-day,  the  name  of  Bright  is  honoured,  and  his 
memory  cherished  and  revered,  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  great  Republic  of  the  West. 


160 


CHAPTER    IX 

CANADA 

In  the  years  1865  and  1866,  there  were  those  who 
thought  that  the  ill-feeUng  which  had  sprung  up 
between  England  and  America  during  the  American 
Civil  War  might  end  in  the  invasion  of  Canada  by  the 
United  States.  Bright  told  the  House  of  Commons,  with 
characteristic  frankness,  that  the  ruling  classes  feared 
the  hostility  of  the  United  States  because  these  classes 
had  during  the  war  been  unfriendly  to  the  Republic. 
He  said : 

I  should  like  to  ask  this  House,  in  a  most  serious 
mood,  what  is  the  reason  that  any  man  in  this  country 
has  now  more  anxiety  with  regard  to  the  preservation 
of  peace  with  the  United  States  than  he  had  a  few  years 
ago  ?  Is  there  not  a  consciousness  in  our  heart  of 
hearts  that  we  have  not  during  the  last  five  years 
behaved  generously  to  our  neighbour  ?  Do  not  we 
feel  in  some  sort  a  pricking  of  conscience,  and  are  we 
not  sensible  that  conscience  tends  to  make  us  cowards 
at  this  particular  juncture  ?  ^ 

Bright  ridiculed  the  notion  of  an  American  invasion 
of  Canada.     He  admitted  that  there  was  a  war  party 

^  House  of  Commons,  March  13,  1865. 

161  « 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

in  the  United  States — a  war  party  created  by  English 
misgovernment  in  another  part  of  the  world — the 
Irish. 

I  believe  there  is  [a  war  party].  It  is  that  party 
which  was  a  war  party  eighty  years  ago.  It  is  the 
party  represented  by  hon.  gentlemen  who  sit  on  that 
bench — the  Irish  Party.  They  who  are  hostile  to  this 
country  in  the  United  States  are  those  who  were  recently 
malcontent  subjects  of  the  right  hon.  gentleman  the 
member  for  Tam worth  [Sir  Robert  Peel,  Chief  Secretary 
for  Ireland].  It  is  these,  and  such  as  these,  to  whom 
the  noble  lord  at  the  head  of  the  Government  offers 
only  such  consolation  as  that  of  telling  them  that  '  the 
rights  of  the  tenants  are  the  wrongs  of  the  landlords.' 

But  Bright  contended  that  the  Irish  were  not  strong 
enough  to  force  the  United  States  into  war.  It  was 
quite  clear,  in  his  opinion,  that  the  Canadians  would 
never  provoke  hostilities  with  the  United  States. 
Then  how  was  the  war  to  come  ?  Not  from  the  United 
States,  who  had  had  enough  of  war  troubles.  The 
Government  of  the  United  States,  he  said,  was 
essentially  a  Government  of  peace.  Were  the  people 
of  England  anxious  to  go  to  war  with  America  ?  He 
did  not  think  so. 

I  believe  there  are  no  men  out  of  Bedlam — or  at 
least  who  ought  to  be  out  of  it — and  I  suspect  there 
are  very  few  men  in  Bedlam,  who  are  in  favour  of  our 
going  to  war  with  the  United  States.  And  in  taking 
this  view  I  am  not  arguing  that  it  is  because  we  see  the 
vast  naval  and  military  power  and  apparently  inex- 
haustible resources  of  that  country.  I  will  not  assume 
that  you  or  my  countrymen  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  better  for  us  not  to  make  war  with  America 

162 


CANADA 

because  you  and  they  find  her  with  a  strength  that  you 
did  not  even  suspect :  I  will  say  that  it  is  upon  higher 
grounds  that  we  are  all  against  a  war  with  the  United 
States.  Our  history  for  the  last  two  hundred  years,  and 
further  back,  is  a  record  of  calamitous  and,  for  the  most 
part,  unnecessary  wars.  We  have  had  enough  of  what- 
ever a  nation  can  gain  by  military  successes  and  military 
glory.  I  will  not  turn  to  the  disasters  that  might 
follow  to  our  commerce  nor  to  the  widespread  ruin  that 
might  be  occasioned.  I  will  say  that  we  are  a  wiser  and 
a  better  people  than  we  were  in  these  respects,  and  that 
we  should  regard  a  war  with  the  United  States  as  even 
a  greater  crime,  if  needlessly  entered  into,  than  war 
with  almost  any  other  country  in  the  world. 

However,  the  panic-mongers  in  England  demanded 
the  '  fortification  '  of  Canada,  and  on  March  23,  1865, 
the  Government  proposed  that  a  sum  of  £200,000 
should  be  spent  on  the  defences  of  Quebec,  of  which 
£50,000  should  be  paid  out  of  the  Imperial  Exchequer 
and  the  balance  by  the  Government  of  Canada.  Bright 
opposed  the  vote.  He  thought  that  it  was  both  un- 
necessary and  useless.  It  was  unnecessary  because 
there  was  no  likelihood  of  wanton  invasion  of  Canada 
by  the  United  States,  and  it  was  useless  because  if  the 
United  States  attacked  Canada,  Canada  could  not  be 
defended  against  the  overwhelming  power  of  that 
country.  In  addition  it  was  unfair  to  ask  the  Govern- 
ment of  Canada  to  pay  the  larger  proportion  of  the 
cost  of  these  defences  which  were  proposed  by  the 
Imperial  Government. 

What  is  it  that  the  member  for  Oxford  [Mr.  Glad- 
stone] says  ?  He  states,  in  reference  to  the  expendi- 
ture for  the  proposed  fortifications,   that,   though  a 

163  M2 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

portion  of  the  expenditure  is  to  be  borne  by  us,  the 
main  portion  is  to  be  borne  by  Canada  ;  but  I  venture 
to  tell  him  that  if  there  shall  be  any  occasion  to 
defend  Canada  at  all,  it  will  not  arise  from  anything 
Canada  does,  but  from  what  England  does ;  and 
therefore  I  protest  against  the  doctrine  that  the  Cabinet 
in  London  may  get  into  difficulties,  and  ultimately 
into  war,  with  the  Cabinet  at  Washington ;  that 
because  Canada  lies  adjacent  to  the  United  States,  and 
may  consequently  become  a  great  battlefield,  this 
United  Kingdom  has  a  right  to  call  on  Canada  for  the 
main  portion  of  that  expenditure. 

He  warned  the  Government  not  to  impose  burdens 
on  the  taxpayers  of  Canada  which  they  would  be  un- 
willing to  bear.  He  was  not  averse  to  the  separation 
of  Canada  from  England,  if  the  Canadians  so  wished 
it.  But  he  thought  it  would  be  deplorable  if  separa- 
tion were  to  come  about  as  the  result  of  differences 
arising  from  any  unfair  treatment  of  the  country 
by  the  Imperial  Government.  Let  Canada,  he  said  in 
effect,  separate  from  England,  let  her  even  unite  with 
the  American  Republic,  but  let  her  not  be  driven  to 
separation  or  to  union  with  America  by  the  policy  of 
England.  The  vote  was,  however,  it  is  needless  to 
say,  passed. 

From  the  acquisition  of  Canada  by  England  in  1763,^ 
six  important  constitutional  measures  affecting  the 
government  of  the  country  had  become  law.  In  1774 
it  was  decided  that  the  French  law  of  property  and  the 
English  criminal  law  should  prevail ;  that  an  admini- 
strative council  with  powers  to  raise  money  for  muni- 

^  Canada  was  conquered  by  England  in  1759,  and  the  conquest  was 
confirmed  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris  in  1763. 

164 


CANADA 

cipal  and  local  affairs  should  be  established  in  Quebec  ; 
and  that  the  English  Parliament  should  reserve  to 
itself  the  control  of  the  Customs.  In  1791  the  country 
was  divided  into  Upper  and  Lower  Canada,  with  a  Gov- 
ernor for  each,  and  representative  institutions  were  in- 
troduced into  both  '  provinces.'  A  House  of  Assembly 
elected  by  popular  suffrage,  and  a  Legislative  Council 
nominated  by  the  Governor  on  behalf  of  the  Crown,  were 
created.  The  executive  was  vested  in  the  Governor 
and  an  Executive  Council ;  but  the  Parliaments  had  no 
choice  in  the  selection  of  the  Ministers  of  the  Crown. 
This  Act  also  provided  for  the  support  of  the  Protestant 
clergy  by  setting  apart  for  their  use  certain  waste  lands, 
called  the  'clergy  reserves.'  Up  to  1818  the  Crown  had 
the  control  of  the  purse,  as  the  revenues  were  chiefly 
derived  from  the  Customs.  The  House  of  Assembly  in 
Lower  Canada  chafed  under  this  control,  and  finally 
succeeded  in  1818  in  obtaining  permission  to  raise  taxes 
itself,  and  thus  to  share  with  the  Crown  the  control 
of  the  purse. 

The  House  of  Assembly  was  almost  entirely  com- 
posed of  French,  and  as  a  counterbalancing  force  the 
Crown  made  the  Legislative  Council  almost  entirely 
English  ;  the  Executive  Council  was  also  composed 
of  Englishmen.  The  result  of  this  arrangement 
was  constant  friction  between  the  popular  Chamber 
and  the  Legislative  Council  supported  by  the 
Executive.  In  1831  the  popular  Assembly  suc- 
ceeded in  gaining  a  fresh  acquisition  of  power  by 
obtaining  control  of  the  Customs  and  of  almost  all  the 
revenues.  The  House  of  Assembly  now  stood  in  this 
position.     It  had  practically  the  control  of  the  purse, 

165 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

but  could  exercise  no  influence  in  the  selection  of 
Ministers.  Between  1831  and  1838  there  was  a  con- 
stant struggle  between  the  popular  Assembly,  to  have 
a  voice  in  choosing  the  Executive,  and  the  Upper 
House  and  the  Governor  to  resist  its  demands.  In 
1833  the  Assembly  proposed  to  grant  supplies  condition- 
ally. The  conditions  were  refused,  and  the  supplies 
were  stopped.  Supplies  were  again  stopped  in  the  years 
1834, 1835.  and  1836.  In  1836  the  English  Government 
appointed  a  commission  to  inquire  into  the  Canadian 
troubles,  and  the  commission  suggested  (in  an  interim 
report)  that  the  Act  of  1831  should  be  repealed ;  in 
fact,  practically  that  the  House  of  Assembly  should  be 
deprived  of  the  control  of  the  purse.  The  House  of 
Assembly  met  this  proposal  by  again  stopping  the 
supplies  ;  and,  inter  alia,  demanding  (in  an  address  to 
the  Governor)  that  the  Executive  Council  should  be 
made  directly  responsible  to  the  Assembly.  The 
English  Government  refused  to  grant  the  demand  of 
the  Assembly.  The  Lower  House  again,  in  1837,  re- 
fused supplies.  The  Parliament  was  then  prorogued. 
Scenes  of  lawlessness  and  violence  followed.  In  1838 
the  Canadian  Constitution  was  suspended,  and  the 
famous  Durham  Commission  was  issued  ;  the  result  of 
the  Durham  Commission  was  the  passing  of  the  Act  of 
1840,  which  provided,  inter  alia  1 — 

1.  That  the  two  provinces  should  be  united  under 
the  common  name  of  '  Canada.' 

2.  That    there    should   be  only   one    Parliament, 
consisting  of  a  House  of  Assembly  (84  members)  elected 

^  There  were  also  troubles  in  Upper  Canada,  where  the  Lower 
House  demanded  that  the  Executive  should  be  subject  to  Parliamentary 
control. 

166 


CANADA 

by  popular  suffrage,  and  a  Legislative  Council  nominated 
by  the  Crown.     The  Executive  Council  remained. 

Despite  this  Act,  there  was  a  disposition  on  the  part 
of  the  first  two  Governors  to  oppose  the  influence  of  the 
popular  Assembly  in  the  appointment  of  Ministers ; 
but  this  influence  was  ultimately  established  by  Lord 
Elgin,  the  third  Governor ;  and  between  1846  and 
1854  the  Executive  was  made  subject  to  the  popular 
Chamber.! 

Such  was  the  condition  of  things  up  to  1867.  Then 
the  most  important  Act — '  the  British  North  America 
Act ' — in  the  development  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment in  Canada  became  law.  The  framers  of  the 
Constitution  of  1840  had  contemplated  the  inclusion  of 
Newfoundland  (acquired  in  1713),  Nova  Scotia,  which 
then  included  New  Brunswick  (acquired  in  1713), 
and  Prince  Edward  Island  (acquired  in  1758)  in  the 
Canadian  Union.  But  their  views  were  not  carried 
out  at  the  time.  Effect  was  partly  given  to  these  views 
by  the  Act  of  1867.  By  this  measure  a  Federal  Con- 
stitution, embracing  Canada  (which  was  divided  into 
the  provinces  of  Ontario  and  Quebec)  and  Nova 
Scotia  and  New  Brunswick,  was  formed.  One  Parlia- 
ment, consisting  of  a  Senate  and  a  House  of  Commons, 
was  established  for  the  '  Dominion,'  but  each  province 
was  allowed  to  have  a  Parliament  and  an  Executive  of 
its  own  for  the  management  of  local  affairs.  There 
was  a  Governor-General    for   the   Dominion,    and  a 

^  During  Lord  Elgin's  governorship  a  Bill,  which  was  disliked  by  the 
English  Party,  was  passed.  When  Lord  Elgin  gave  his  assent  to  it,  riots 
broke  out  in  Montreal,  then  the  seat  of  government,  and  the  ParUament 
House  was  burned  down.  But  Lord  Elgin  stood  to  his  guns,  and  so 
established  the  principle  of  Ministerial  responsibihty  as  it  existed  in 
England. 

167 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Lieutenant-Governor  for  each  province.  The  Executive 
Council  was  abohshed,  and  a  Privy  Council  for  Canada 
created  instead. 

The  executive  authority,  with  supreme  command 
over  all  naval  and  military  forces,  remained  vested 
in  the  English  sovereign.  Finally,  the  principle  of 
Ministerial  responsibility  as  it  existed  in  England  was 
fully  recognised  in  Canada.^ 

Bright  made  a  short  speech  in  support  of  the  second 
reading  of  this  Bill.  He  deprecated  the  haste  which 
had  been  shown  in  introducing  the  measure,  and  in 
pushing  it  through  Parliament.  He  said  the  subject 
was  one  of  the  gravest  importance,  and  needed  more 
time  and  consideration  from  the  House  and  the  country 
than  the  Government  seemed  disposed  to  give  it.  So 
far  as  he  could  see,  no  one  took  sufficient  interest,  con- 
sidering its  importance,  in  the  matter.  He  condemned 
the  proposal  to  establish  a  nominated  instead  of  an 
elective  Legislative  Council,  and  expressed  a  strong 
opinion  in  favour  of  allowing  every  province  to  have 
ample  time  in  deciding  whether  it  should  enter  the 
Federation  or  not.  In  this  respect  he  thought  that 
Nova  Scotia,  which  seemed  to  be  somewhat  uncertain 
as  to  what  course  she  should  take,  was  not  quite 
fairly  dealt  with,  on  account  of  the  haste  which  the 
Government  had  shown  in  carrying  the  Bill  rapidly 
through  its  various  stages.  He  concluded  with  these 
words  : 

*  Provisions  were  made  in  the  Act  for  the  admission  of  new  provinces 
to  the  '  Dominion.'  Since  the  passing  of  the  Act  Manitoba  and  North- 
west Territories  (1870),  British  Columbia  (187 1),  and  Prince  Edward 
Island  (1873)  have  been  admitted  to  the  '  Dominion.' 

On  the  subject  of  Canada  see  Mr.  Holland's  valuable  book, 
Imperium  et  Liber tas, 

168 


CANADA 

I  have  not  risen  for  the  purpose  of  objecting  to  the 
second  reading  of  this  Bill.  Under  the  circumstances 
I  presume  it  is  well  that  we  should  do  no  other  than 
read  it  a  second  time.  But  I  think  the  Government 
ought  to  have  given  a  little  more  time.  I  think  they 
have  not  treated  the  province  of  Nova  Scotia  with 
that  tenderness,  that  generosity,  and  that  consideration 
which  is  desirable  when  you  are  about  to  make  so  great 
a  change  in  its  affairs  and  in  its  future.  For  my  share, 
I  want  the  population  of  these  provinces  to  do  that 
which  they  believe  to  be  best  for  their  own  interests — 
to  remain  with  this  country  if  they  like  it,  in  the  most 
friendly  manner,  or  to  become  independent  States  if 
they  wish  it.  If  they  should  prefer  to  unite  them- 
selves with  the  United  States,  I  should  not  complain 
even  of  that.  But  whatever  be  their  course,  there  is 
no  man  in  this  House  or  in  those  provinces  who  has  a 
more  sincere  wish  for  their  greatness  and  their  welfare 
than  I  have  who  have  taken  the  liberty  thus  to  criticise 
this  Bill.i 

Lord  Carnarvon,  in  introducing  the  Bill  in  the 
Lords,  said  : 

It  is  not  every  nation  or  every  stage  of  the  national 
existence  that  admits  of  a  federative  government. 
Federation  is  only  possible  under  certain  conditions  : 
when  the  States  to  be  federated  are  so  far  akin  that 
they  can  be  united,  and  yet  so  far  dissimilar  that 
they  cannot  be  fused  into  a  single  body  politic.  And 
this  I  believe  to  be  the  present  condition  of  the 
provinces  of  North  America. 

I  may  here  quote  the  admirable  summary,  given 
by  Mr.  Bernard  Holland,  of  the  powers  of  the  Dominion 
Parliament  and  of  the  Provincial  Legislatures  : 

To  the  Central  Parliament    the    Act    specifically 

'  House  of  Commons,  February  28,  1867. 
169 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

assigns  all  questions  of  the  public  debt  and  property, 
regulation  of  trade  and  commerce,  the  raising  of 
money  by  any  mode  or  system  of  taxation.  Customs 
and  Excise,  currency,  coinage,  and  banking  laws, 
postal  arrangements,  census  and  other  statistics,  the 
enactment  of  criminal  law,  marriage  and  divorce, 
the  laws  of  bankruptcy,  patents  and  copyright,  ques- 
tions of  naturalisation  and  aliens,  the  regulation  of 
Indians  and  Indian  reserves  ;  within  their  province 
also  fall  all  matters  relating  to  military  and  naval 
service,  coast  control,  and  sea-coast  and  internal 
fisheries.  The  chief  subjects  reserved  to  the  Pro- 
vincial Legislatures  are  the  management  and  sale 
of  public  lands  belonging  to  the  province,  the  control 
of  asylums,  charitable  and  municipal  institutions, 
and  prisons,  provincial  roads,  railways  and  public 
works,  the  solemnisation  of  marriage,  property  and 
civil  rights,  the  administration  of  justice  in  the  pro- 
vince and  regulation  of  civil  proceedings,  and,  subject 
to  certain  guarantees  for  the  protection  of  religious 
minorities,  education.  The  Provincial  Legislatures 
have  also  the  power  of  direct  taxation,  though  the 
Dominion  Parliament  can  also  impose  direct  taxation 
if  it  desires.  The  Provincial  Legislatures  may  also 
make  laws  with  regard  to  agriculture  and  immigration 
within  their  areas,  but  not  so  as  to  be  repugnant  to 
any  Act  which  the  Parliament  of  Canada  may,  under 
their  general  powers,  pass  on  the  same  subjects. 
The  power  of  amending  their  own  Constitution  has 
also  been  entrusted  to  the  Provincial  Legislatures. ^ 

'  The  British  North   America   Act '   crowned  the 
edifice  of  Canadian  autonomy. 

^  Imperium  et  Libertas. 


170 


CHAPTER  X 

PARLIAMENTARY    REFORM 

In  the  pages  of  Punch — a  true  index  to  the  state  of 
pubhc  opinion,  and  to  the  estimation  in  which  pubhc 
men  are,  for  the  time  being,  held  in  England — Bright 
is  represented,  between  the  years  1852  and  1867,  as 
the  champion  of  Parliamentary  Reform.^  On  Febru- 
ary 21,  1852,  the  cartoon  shows  us  a  group  of  states- 
men. The  Lord  Chancellor  is  holding  an  infant  in  his 
arms.  The  infant's  clothes  are  marked  '  New  Reform 
Bill/  Lord  John  Russell  looks  highly  pleased.  Bright 
is  the  central  figure,  and  with  glass  in  eye  and  Quaker's 
hat  in  hand  regards  the  infant  contemptuously.  The 
letterpress  informs  us  :  *  Lord  John  Russell's  second 
Reform  Bill  was  coldly  received  by  Mr.  Bright  and 
other    ardent    reformers.     The    Ministry   fell    shortly 

^  By  the  way,  the  question  has  often  been  asked  why  Bright  is 
represented  in  Punch  as  wearing  an  eyeglass,  when  in  fact  he  never 
did  wear  an  eyeglass  ?  The  answer  will  be  found  in  the  Recollections 
of  Sir  Algernon  West.  Sir  Algernon  says :  '  I  asked  [Tenniel]  why 
Lord  Palmerston  was  always  drawn  in  Punch  with  a  straw  in  his 
mouth,  and  he  told  me  that,  being  a  difficult  likeness  to  catch,  they 
were  obhged  to  do  something  which  the  pubUc  should  always  recognise  ; 
for  the  same  reason  Mr.  Bright  was  always  drawn  as  wearing  a  broad- 
brimmed  Quaker's  hat  and  an  eyeglass,  neither  of  which  he  ever  wore.* 

171 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

after   its   introduction,  and   the  measure  was   never 
discussed/ 

In  the  cartoon  for  November  6,  1858,  we  see  Bright 
with  bellows  in  hands,  sitting  before  a  fire  and  blowing 
it.  Over  the  fire  hangs  a  cauldron  on  which  is  the  word 
'  Reform/  Bright  is  represented  as  saying,  '  It  will 
soon  boil.'  Public  opinion  was  not  yet  excited  on  the 
subject  of  Reform,  and  Bright  had  addressed  several 
meetings,  for  the  purpose  of  rousing  popular  enthusiasm 
and  forcing  the  question  on  the  attention  of  Ministers. 

The  cartoon  for  December  18,  1858,  shows  Bright 
and  Russell  in  the  character  of  pugilists.  Bright  has 
apparently  just  given  Russell  a  knock-out  blow. 
Russell  is  holding  his  gloved  hand  to  his  mouth  and 
shows  no  inclination  to  come  up  to  time.  Bright,  on 
the  other  hand,  looks  full  of  fight :  Cobden  is  looking 
on  gravely,  standing  near  Bright,  and  there  are  two  men 
on  the  floor  who  have  been  clearly  knocked  over 
by  the  Brummagem  bruiser.  The  title  of  the  cartoon 
is :  '  Mr.  Bright  offers  to  give  satisfaction  to  the  Liberal 
Party.'  In  fact,  Bright  regarded  Lord  John  RusselFs 
Reform  Bill  as  unsatisfactory,  and  proposed  the  widest 
extension  of  the  suffrage. 

The  cartoon  for  January  29,  1859^  represents  Bright 
climbing  '  a  very  greasy  pole '  on  the  top  of  which  is  a 
leg  of  mutton  called  *  Popularity.'  The  pole  itself  is 
called  '  Reform  Bill.' 

On  March  12,  1859,  we  find  a  drawing  of  the  British 
lion — asleep  ;  and  Bright,  Disraeli,  and  Russell  are 
trying  to  wake  him  by  poking  him  with  red-hot  bars. 
Bright  is  in  the  forefront  of  the  picture.  On  each  bar 
is  the  word  *  Reform.' 

172 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

On  April  30, 1859,  there  is  a  picture  of  an  open  door 
over  which  is  written  the  word  '  Treasury/  There  is  a 
rush  to  get  in.  The  entrance  is  blocked  by  struggling 
statesmen.  Disraeli  and  Derby  have  the  innermost 
position.  Palmerston  is  pushing  his  way  on  the  right, 
and  Disraeli,  who  is  near  to  him,  has  got  jammed  and 
looks  uncomfortable.  On  the  left  Bright  is  pushing 
back  foremost,  touching  Palmerston.  Russell  is  crushed 
between  both.  The  title  of  the  cartoon  is  :  '  The  real 
ugly  rush ' — an  adaptation  of  words  used  by  Mr.  Henley : 
'  He  feared  there  would  be  an  ugly  rush  some  of 
these  days.'  The  letterpress  explains  :  '  The  Reform 
Question  had  become  for  both  parties  a  battle-ground 
for  the  possession  of  the  Treasury  Bench.'  It  proved 
fatal  to  the  Derby  Ministry  in  the  preceding  month. 

In  May  i860  Lord  John  Russell  is  represented  as 
the  '  Reform  Janus.'  One  face  is  turned  to  Bright, 
saying,  '  Just  the  thing  you  want,  my  dear  Bright : 
double  your  constituency.'  The  other  is  turned  to 
Lord  Derby,  saying,  '  Pray  don't  be  alarmed  ;  it  only 
adds  one  per  cent,  to  the  franchise.' 

In  the  foreground  is  a  roll  of  paper  bearing  the 
words  '  Reform  Bill.' 

Lord  John  Russell's  abortive  Reform  Bill  of  i860 
pleased  nobody.  On  December  5,  1863,  Bright  and 
Cobden  are  represented  as  engaged  in  conversation 
with  an  agricultural  labourer.  The  title  of  the  cartoon 
is :  '  Cobden's  logic'  Cobden  is  quoted  :  '  I  don't 
know,  perhaps,  any  country  in  the  world  where  the 
masses  of  the  People  are  so  illiterate  as  in  England. 
.  .  .  Sound  statesmanship  requires  such  an  extension 
of  the  franchise   as   shall   admit   the  masses   of   the 

^7^ 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

people  to  political  power/ — From  Mr.  Cobden's  speech 
at  Rochdale.  Cobden  addresses  the  labourer  thus : 
'  You  are  the  greatest  booby  in  the  universe,  and 
therefore  you  ought  to  have  a  vote.' 

Bright  says,  *  Hear,  hear  !  ' 

On  February  4,  1865,  Bright  is  represented  as  a 
doctor  speaking  to  '  his  patient,'  a  working  man. 
The  dialogue  is  as  follows  : 

Dr.  Bright.  '  Do  you  get  good  wages  ?  ' 
Patient.   '  Yes.' 

Doctor.   '  Have  you  plenty  to  eat  and  drink  ?  ' 
Patient.  '  Yes,  as  far  as  that  goes.' 
Doctor.  '  Do  you  do  as  you  like  ?  ' 
Patient.   '  Yes.' 
Doctor.    '  Do  you  pay  taxes  ?  ' 
Patient.   '  None  to  hurt  me  much.' 
Doctor.   *  Ah  !  we  must  change  all  that.     We  must 
go  in  for  Reform  !  ' 

'  This  colloquy,'  is  supposed  to  give  not  an  '  unfair 
summary  '  of  a  speech  delivered  by  Bright. 

In  the  cartoon  of  November  25,  1865,  Bright  is 
represented  as  a  '  Wallflower  '  at  a  ball. 

'  Nobody  asks  Me/  says  '  Miss  Bright '  ;  '  and  if 
they  did,  I  should  certainly  decline.'  In  the  back- 
ground is  Lord  John  Russell  asking  '  Miss  Goschen  '  to 
*  join  our  set.' 

The  appendant  note  states  :  '  Lord  Russell's  Whig 
prejudices  were  too  strong  to  permit  his  offering  Mr. 
Bright  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet— though  none  had  better 
deserved  it.' 

In  the  cartoon  for  December  9,  1865,  Bright  is 
represented  as  introducing  a  deputation  of  working 

174 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

men  to  Lord  John  Russell,  who  is  sitting  apathetically 
in  his  library.  Bright,  with  upraised  hand  and 
clenched  fist,  is  addressing  him.  Russell  says,  *  Well, 
well !  Don't  be  violent,  Mr.  Bright,  and  proper  in- 
quiries shall  be  made,  as  we  have  perfect  confidence  in 
our  friend,  Mr.  Working  Man.' 

The  cartoon  is  called  '  John  Slow  and  John  Fast.' 
Punch  explains  :  *  Lord  Russell  claimed  to  have  a 
monopoly  of  the  Reform  Question,  and  was  not 
prepared  to  make  the  violent  changes  demanded  by 
Mr.  Bright.' 

On  December  30,  1865,  we  are  given  a    scene  from 

*  St.  Stephen's  Pantomime.'  Lord  John  Russell  as  a 
nurse  is  walking  along  with  an  infant  in  arms.  The 
word '  Reform '  is  on  the  infant's  robe.  Bright  is  coming 
along  behind  as  a  clown.      He  seizes  the  robe,  saying, 

*  What  a  beautiful  child  !  Let  me  take  care  of  it 
for  yer,  mum.'  We  read  in  the  letterpress  :  *  The 
Ministry  were  deaf  alike  to  Mr.  Bright's  menaces  and 
persuasions,  and  their  Bill,  as  ultimately  framed,  did 
not  contain  any  of  the  points  for  which  he  contended.' 

On  January  20,  1866,  the  Reform  Bill  being  yet 
unsettled,  Russell  and  Bright  are  represented  on  board 
a  ship.  Russell  is  the  captain.  Bright  an  'officious 
passenger.'  He  has  a  trumpet,  on  which  is  written  the 
word  *  Reform,'  and  is  shouting  through  it:  'Lower 
away  there,  lower  away ! '  Lord  John  says,  *  Excuse  me, 
friend  Bright,  but  do  you  command  this  ship,  or  do 
I  ?  '  The  letterpress  says :  '  Mr.  Bright,  not  having 
been  admitted  to  the  Cabinet,  was  endeavouring  from 
the  platform  to  force  the  hands  of  the  Ministry.' 

On  February  10,  1866,  Russell  and  Gladstone  are 

175 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

represented  walking  down  to  the  House.  Bright 
appears  as  a  crossing-sweeper  with  his  finger  to  his  hat, 
saluting  them.  The  word  '  Reform  '  is  on  the  pave- 
ment. Russell  says, '  Well,  Bright,  what  do  you  want  ? ' 
*  Johnny  Bright '  repHes,  '  Anything  your  Honour  is 
willing  to  give  me  Now.'  According  to  Punch,  Bright, 
finding  it  impossible  to  get  his  own  proposals  adopted 
b}^  Ministers,  was  willing  to  accept  a  compromise. 

The  cartoon  for  September  8,  1866,  is  called  '  The 
Brummagem  Frankenstein.'  A  giant  is  sitting  on  a 
stone.  Bright,  looking  frightened,  is  stealing  past. 
He  says  (a  quotation  from  a  speech  at  Birming- 
ham), '  I  have  no  fe-fe-fear  of  ma-manhood  suffrage.' 
Letterpress :  '  The  unwillingness  of  Parliament  to 
accept  any  measure  of  Reform  had  aroused  a  wide- 
spread discontent  amongst  the  working  classes. 
A  monster  gathering  was  held  at  Birmingham  in 
August.' 

The  cartoon  for  October  20,  1866,  represents  Bright 
as  a  parrot  standing  on  a  perch  called  '  Universal 
Suffrage.'  The  parrot  is  shrieking,  '  Pretty  democra-a- 
ats  !  Take  'em  to  the  poll !  Naughty  Bob  Lowe  ! 
Schgree-e-e-yx  !  !  !  ' 

Letterpress :  '  Mr.  Bright  was  now  addressing 
Reform  meetings  in  various  towns.  The  burden  of 
them  was  an  abuse  of  Mr.  Lowe,  who  had  aided  in 
rejecting  Lord  Russell's  measure.' 

The  cartoon  for  January  12,  1867,  represents  an 
open  door.  On  it  is  written  'House  of  Commons.' 
Britannia  is  standing  inside.  The  ground  is  covered 
with  snow.  There  are  four  rival  sweepers  (Bright, 
Russell,   Derby,  Disraeli)   outside.      Bright  stands  in 

176 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

the  front  looking   sturdy  and  earnest.      There  is   a 
general  chorus,  '  Clear  yer  door-step  down,  mum  ? ' 

Letterpress :  '  All  parties  were  pledged  to  a 
renewal  of  the  Reform  discussion  in  the  approaching 
Session.  There  was,  therefore,  every  prospect  of  an 
animated  rivalry.'  As  is  well  known,  the  Reform  Bill 
was  finally  carried  in  1867  by  the  Government  of 
Lord  Derby,  Mr.  Disraeli  being  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer. 

The  cartoon  of  May  25,  1867,  represents  the  Derby. 
Disraeli  is  winning,  with  Bright  and  Gladstone  close  at 
his  heels.  The  title  of  the  cartoon  is  '  The  Derby,  1867. 
Dizzy  wins  with  ''  Reform  Bill.''  '  Punch  has  given 
a  faithful  picture  of  the  progress  of  the  movement  for 
Parliamentary  Reform  between  1852  and  1867.  At 
first  a  movement  of  despair  led  by  Bright  (who  never 
despaired),  it  finally  became  a  movement  of  success 
led  by  Disraeli  (who  was  indifferent  to  the  subject). 

Bright  had  no  faith  in  aristocratic  institutions. 
He  believed  in  government  broadly  based  upon  the 
people's  will ;  and  it  was  to  secure  such  a  government 
that  he  advocated  the  cause  of  Parliamentary 
Reform.  Writing  to  John  Bigelow  in  March  1863  he 
gives  the  following  account  of  the  English  '  repre- 
sentative '  system  : 

It  is  a  general  estimate  that  there  are  seven  millions 
of  men  of  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  upward  in  the 
United  Kingdom.  Of  these  about  one  million  alone 
can  vote — there  are  more  than  a  million  names  on  the 
registers  of  electors,  but  as  many  are  on  more  than 
once — that  is,  having  a  vote  for  the  borough  in  which 
they  live  and  the  county  also — a  considerable  deduction 

177 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

must  be  made,  and  I  believe  that  not  more  than  one 
milHon  persons  in  the  United  Kingdom  could  vote  at 
any  one  general  election. 

As  to  the  privileged  order.  The  House  of  Lords 
alone  may  be  said  to  be  strictly  privileged :  its  members 
chiefly  sit  by  hereditary  title,  and  that  is  their  chief 
privilege.  The  Bishops  are  not  there  by  hereditary 
claim,  and  certain  Scotch  and  Irish  peers  are  there  as 
representatives  of  the  Scotch  and  Irish  peerage,  which 
is  distinct  from  the  peerage  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
I  suppose  the  families  of  the  House  of  Lords  are 
about  400  in  number ;  as  a  rule  they  do  not  meddle 
in  trade,  and  they  have  a  great  influence  in  securing 
patronage  for  their  sons  and  relations  ;  and,  generally, 
among  the  baronets  and  other  territorial  proprietors, 
not  being  peers,  there  is  a  great  tendency  to  look  to 
Government  appointments  for  a  career.  Our  system 
consists  of  these  great  families,  with  great  landed  pro- 
perties ;  of  the  State  Church,  which  is  almost  entirely 
in  their  hands,  and  devoted  to  their  interests  ;  and  of 
the  large  class  chiefly  derived  from  the  territorial  ranks 
who  fill  the  best  offices  under  the  Government,  and  in  all 
the  services  of  the  State.  In  the  House  of  Commons 
a  large  proportion  of  the  members,  more  than  one-third 
of  them  I  think,  are  directly  connected  with  members 
of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  thus  the  whole  thing  is  so 
interwoven  that  it  makes  a  fabric  so  strong  that  prob- 
ably only  some  great  convulsion  will  ever  break 
through  it.i 

It  was  Bright's  policy  to  reform  this  system, 
and,  practically,  to  transfer  the  government  of  the 
country  from  the  privileged  classes  to  the  masses  of 
the  people. 

I  think  it  was  during  the  discussions  on  the  Reform 

*  Bigelow,  vol.  i.  p.  610, 
178 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

Bill  of  1832  that  Lord  John  Russell  declared  that  the 
measure  should  be  final — a  statement  which  earned 
for  him  the  sobriquet  of  '  Finality  John/  Exactly 
twenty  years  after  the  passing  of  the  Reform  Bill  of 
1832,  Lord  John  Russell  brought  forward  another 
measure  of  Reform.  1  This  measure  proposed  the 
adoption  of  a  £20  rating  franchise  for  counties,  and  a 
£5  rating  franchise  for  boroughs.  It  also  proposed 
to  abolish  property  qualifications  for  members,  to  omit 
from  the  oath  taken  by  members  of  Parliament  the 
words  '  on  the  true  faith  of  a  Christian/  and  to 
make  it  no  longer  necessary  for  Ministers  changing 
from  one  office  to  another  to  vacate  their  seats. 
The  Bill  was  coldly  received  by  all  parties  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  was  immediately  with- 
drawn. In  1854  Lord  John  Russell  introduced  another 
Reform  Bill,  which  proposed  to  give  the  franchise  to 
£10  householders  in  counties,  if  rated  not  lower  than 
£5,  and  to  persons  in  boroughs  rated  at  £6.  But  the 
measure  was  withdrawn  on  account  of  the  Crimean 
War,  which  absorbed  public  attention  to  the  exclusion 
of  everything  else. 

Bright  was  absent  from  the  House  of  Commons, 
owing  to  illness,  during  the  years  1856  and  1857.  ^^ 
1858  he  returned  to  public  life,  and  at  once  took  up  the 
question  of  Parliamentary  Reform.  Towards  the  end 
of  1858  he  addressed  public  meetings  on  the  subject  in 

*  In  February  1851  Locke  King  had  moved  a  resolution  for  assimi- 
lating the  county  and  the  borough  franchise,  and  it  was  carried  against 
the  Government  by  100  to  52.  Lord  John  Russell  at  once  resigned,  but, 
as  Lord  Stanley  was  unable  to  form  a  Ministry,  he  resumed  office  in 
March.  On  this  occasion  Bright  said, '  We  will  never  stand  Lord  John  as 
Prime  Minister  again.' — Malmesbury  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  276. 

179  N2 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

England  and  Scotland,  and  prepared  a  Bill  which, 
though  not  presented  to  Parliament,  had  the  advantage 
of  crystallising  his  views  and  making  his  position 
absolutely  clear.  The  main  features  of  this  Bill  were — 
the  borough  franchise  was  to  be  conferred  on  all  who 
were  rated  to  the  relief  of  the  poor,  and  on  all  lodgers 
who  paid  a  rent  of  ;f  lo ;  no  more  freemen  were  to  be 
created,  and  the  county  franchise  was  to  be  reduced  to 
£10  rental.  The  Bill  put  the  returning  officers'  expenses 
on  the  county  or  borough  rate  ;  prescribed  that  votes 
should  be  taken  by  ballot ;  disfranchised  fifty-six 
English,  twenty-one  Scotch,  and  nine  Irish  boroughs  ; 
and  took  away  one  member  from  thirty-four  other 
boroughs.  The  seats  obtained  by  these  disfranchise- 
ments were  to  be  distributed  according  to  population 
among  the  larger  towns,  counties,  and  divisions  of 
counties  in  the  '  United  Kingdom.'  The  Bill  was  not 
brought  into  Parliament,  but  the  provisions  of  it  were 
well  known  and  discussed  at  the  time.^ 

Bright  by  his  campaigns  in  the  country  roused  the 
people  and  forced  the  hand  even  of  Lord  Derby's 
Government.  In  1859  Mr.  Disraeli,  then  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  introduced  a  Reform  Bill  reducing  the 
franchise  in  counties  to  £10,  leaving  the  borough 
franchise  (;^io)  untouched,  thus  establishing  an 
identity  of  franchise  between  borough  and  county.  It 
introduced  several  '  fancy '  franchises  in  boroughs, 
giving  a  vote  to  persons  having  £10  per  annum  in  the 
Public  Funds,  Bank  Stock,  or  India  Stock,  or  £60  in  a 
savings  bank ;  and  to  recipients  of  pensions  in  the 
naval,  military,  and  civil  services  amounting  to  £20 

^  speeches  of  John  Bright,  ed.  by  Thorold  Rogers,  vol.  ii.  p.  53. 

180 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

a  year.  Dwellers  in  a  portion  of  a  house  the  aggregate 
rent  of  which  was  £20  a  year  could  have  a  vote.  The 
suffrage  was  also  to  be  given  to  graduates  of  the  uni- 
versities, ministers  of  religion,  members  of  the  legal 
and  medical  professions,  and  to  certain  schoolmasters. 
The  Bill  proposed  the  use  of  voting  papers,  and  the 
disfranchisement  of  such  freeholders  in  towns  as  voted 
for  counties.^  The  Bill  was  rejected  on  the  second 
reading. 

In  i860  Lord  John  Russell  introduced  a  Bill  pro- 
posing a  ;^io  county  franchise  and  £6  (rental)  for 
boroughs,  twenty-five  towns  were  to  lose  one  member 
each,  and  there  was  to  be  a  re-distribution  of  the  spare 
seats  among  large  counties  ;  members  were  to  be  given 
to  Chelsea,  Kensington,  Birkenhead,  Stalybridge, 
Burnley,  and  London  University,  and  as  third  seats  to 
Liverpool,  Manchester,  Birmingham,  and  Leeds.  This 
Bill  was  abandoned,  as  Bright  said,  really  because  Lord 
Palmerston  did  not  want  it. 

There  is  not  a  man  in  the  House  of  Commons,  w^ho 
was  there  in  i860,  who  knows  anything  at  all  of  the 
manner  in  which  Bills  and  questions  are  treated  there  ; 
and  there  is  not  a  man  in  the  present  Cabinet,  who  does 
not  know  perfectly  well  that,  if  Lord  Palmerston  had 
said  on  some  one  evening  in  the  year  i860  that  his 
Government  would  stand  or  fall  by  the  Reform  Bill 
then  before  the  House,  that  Bill  would  have  passed 
through  the  House  of  Commons  without  one  single 
effective  hostile  division ;  nay,  I  have  heard  it  from  an 
authority,  that  I  believe  cannot  err  upon  this  question, 
that  the  sagacious  leaders  of  the  House  of  Lords  had 

*  speeches  of  John  Bright,  ed.  by  T.  Rogers,  vol.  ii.  p.  82.     Paul, 
History  of  Reform. 

181 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

resolved  that  if  the  Bill  did  come  up  from  the  Commons, 
they  would  not  take  the  responsibility  of  rejecting  it.  ^ 

There  was  a  general  election  in  the  summer  of  1865. 
Bright  addressed  his  constituents  at  Birmingham  on 
July  12,  and  speaking  of  the  reform  movement,  and  of 
its  inevitable  success,  said  : 

Many  of  you  have  stood,  as  I  have  often  stood,  on 
the  seashore,  in  an  hour  of  quiet  and  of  calm.  No 
tempest  drives  the  waves  ;  the  wind  is  but  a  whisper  ; 
and  yet  the  tide  comes  on  as  by  some  latent  and 
mysterious  power.  The  loiterers  on  the  beach  are 
driven  from  point  to  point  as  the  waves  advance,  and 
at  length  the  whole  vast  basin  of  the  ocean  seems  filled 
to  the  brim.  So  on  this  question  :  there  is  no  violence, 
nor  even  menace  of  force  ;  but  opinion  grows,  its  tide 
moves  on  ;  opposition,  ignorant  on  the  one  hand, 
insolent  on  the  other,  falls  back  ;  and  shortly  we  shall 
see  barriers  thrown  down,  privilege  and  monopoly 
swept  away,  a  people  enfranchised,  and  the  measure  of 
their  freedom  full. 

His  picture  of  Disraeli — slightly  touched  but  vivid 
— is  a  masterpiece : 

The  complaint  now  is,  and  the  danger,  that  the 
whole  nation — 20,000,000  persons,  men,  women,  and 
children — have  no  direct  representation  in  the  House 
of  Commons  of  a  country  whose  great  foundation  of 
government  is  the  representative  system  and  the 
representative  principle.  Well,  now,  what  is  the 
answer  which  is  made  to  this  claim  ?  It  is  this  :  the 
Prime  Minister  [Lord  Palmerston]  answers  it  by  con- 
temptuous silence  ;  he  has  not  referred  to  it  in  the 
long    and   carefully  written  addresses  which   he   has 

^  speech  of  John  Bright  at  Birmingham,  January  1865. 
182 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

issued,  not  only  to  the  electors  of  Tiverton,  but  to  the 
electors  of  the  United  Kingdom.  Well,  but  what  says 
Lord  Derby,  speaking  through  the  mouth  of  his  prophet 
Disraeli  ?  Why,  he  says,  *  lateral  extension/  He  says 
to  the  great  body  of  the  working  men — to  these  five 
millions,  '  It  is  true  you  are  shut  out ;  the  Reform  Bill 
was  not  satisfactory ;  the  representation  may  be 
amended  ;  your  complaint  is  just ;  and  we  will  admit — 
somebody  else/  Now,  Mr.  Disraeli  is  a  man  who 
does  what  may  be  called  the  conjuring  for  his  party. 
He  is  what,  amongst  a  tribe  of  Red  Indians,  would  be 
called  '  the  mystery  man.'  He  invents  phrases  for 
them — and  one  of  the  phrases,  the  last  and  the  newest, 
is  this  lateral  extension  of  the  franchise.  Now,  Mr. 
Disraeli  is  a  man  of  brains,  of  genius,  of  great  capacity 
for  action,  of  a  wonderful  tenacity  of  purpose,  and  of  a 
rare  courage.  He  would  have  been  a  statesman  if  his 
powers  had  been  directed  by  any  noble  principle 
or  idea.  But,  unhappily,  he  prefers  a  temporary  and 
worthless  distinction  as  the  head  of  a  decaying  party, 
fighting  for  impossible  ends,  to  the  priceless  memories 
of  services  rendered  to  his  country  and  to  freedom,  on 
which  only  in  our  age  an  enduring  fame  can  be  built 
up.  Now,  what  is  meant  by  lateral  extension  ?  It 
means  this  :  that  all  below  £io  householders  are  not 
to  be  admitted.  Well,  the  present  law  admits  all  that 
are  above  £io  householders,  and  therefore  it  can  only 
include  those  not  now  included — a  few  men,  inconsider- 
able in  the  whole  number — who  are  lodgers,  or  who 
are  brothers  or  sons  of  housekeepers  whose  names  are 
already  on  the  register  ;  and  therefore  it  is  quite  clear 
that  this  is  a  miserable  pretence  and  a  delusion,  and 
an  insult  of  the  most  glaring  kind  to  the  great  body  of 
the  people. 

Lord    Palmerston    died    in    October    1865.       In 
November  Lord  John  Russell  became  Prime  Minister. 

183 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Lord  Malmesbury  tells  us  that  Lord  John  wanted  to 
have  Bright  in  the  Cabinet,  '  but  the  other  Ministers 
refuse  to  admit  him/  i 

On  March  12,  1866,  Mr.  Gladstone  (Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer)  introduced  another  Reform  Bill.  The 
main  provisions  of  this  measure  were  the  introduction 
of  a  jfi4  occupation  franchise  for  counties,  and  the 
reduction  of  the  borough  franchise  from  £10  to  £7.^ 
There  were  also  to  be  a  savings-bank  franchise  and  a 
lodger  franchise. 

A  famous  battle  raged  around  this  Bill.  Bright  was 
the  hero  of  the  fight.  He  did  not  much  like  the  Bill. 
Were  he  a  Minister,  he  said,  he  would  not  have  intro- 
duced it.  It  was  '  not  adequate  to  the  occasion.' 
It  did  not  go  far  enough,  but  *  so  far  as  it  goes  it  is  a 
simple  and  honest  measure.'  Beggars  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  like  beggars  elsewhere,  could  not  be  choosers. 
They  had  often,  for  the  moment,  to  take  whatever  they 
could  get.  He  was  prepared  to  take  the  Bill  of  the 
Government  as  a  step  in  advance.  The  Bill  was 
opposed  by  the  full  strength  of  the  Tory  Party  and  by 
certain  dissentient  Liberals  practically  led  by  Mr.  Lowe 
and  Mr.  Horsman.  Mr.  Lowe  and  Mr.  Horsman  had 
been  members  of  two  Liberal  administrations  ;  and  it 
was  suggested — no  doubt  uncharitably  suggested — 
that  if  places  had  been  found  for  them  in  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  day,  they  would  have  acquiesced  in  the 
proposals  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  As  it  was  they  were  its 
most  strenuous  opponents.  Both  vehemently  attacked 
Bright,  for  they  recognised  that  he  was  the  true  leader 

^  Malmesbury,  vol.  ii.  p.  346. 
"  McCarthy,  vol.  iv.  p.  56. 

184 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

of  the  Reform  movement,  and  did  more  than  any  other 
man  to  arouse  pubHc  attention  to  the  question,  and  to 
bring  it  within  the  range  of  practical  pohtics. 

Bright  spoke  in  the  course  of  the  debate  on  the  first 
reading  of  the  Bill.  His  speech  scintillated  with 
humour,  and  his  playful  chastisement  of  Lowe  and 
Horsman — not  the  less  severe  because  playful — pro- 
voked incessant  and  general  merriment.  Having 
criticised  the  Bill  sharply  and  pointed  out  its  inade- 
quacies, dwelling  particularly  on  the  paltry  reduction  of 
the  borough  franchise  from  ;^io  to  £"],  and  at  the  same 
time  ridiculing  the  position  of  those  who  poured  forth 
'  cataracts  of  eloquence  '  to  prove  that  such  a  reduction 
would  bring  ruin  upon  the  country  by  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  democracy,  he  turned  his  attention  to  Lowe 
and  Horsman.  In  allusion  to  the  attacks  made  upon 
himself,  he  said  : 

Although  in  the  course  of  this  debate  I  have  been 
the  subject  of  much  remark,  and  of  not  a  little  that  may 
be  fairly  termed  unusual  attack,  I  beg  to  assure  the 
House  that  I  have  not  risen  for  the  purpose  of  defend- 
ing myself,  since  I  am  ready  to  leave  my  course  in  this 
House  and  my  political  character  to  the  impartial  view 
of  members  of  the  House,  and  to  the  just  judgment  of 
my  countrymen  outside  the  House. 

Having  referred  to  the  fact  that  Lowe  and  Horsman 
once  held  office,  and  suggested  that  they  might  perhaps 
like  to  hold  office  again,  he  went  on  : 

I  will  not  deal  in  any  insinuations,  but  I  will  say 
that,  from  gentlemen  who  have  held  office,  but  who 
happen  to  have  been  left  out  of  what  may  be  called  the 
daily  ministrations,  we  have  a  right  to  expect  a  very 

185 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

minute  account  of  the  reasons  why  they  change  their 
opinions  before  we  can  turn  round  and  change  with 
them.  These  are  the  gentlemen  who  all  at  once  start 
up  as  the  great  teachers  of  statesmanship  to  the  House 
and  the  country.  Are  they  what  the  right  hon, 
baronet  the  member  for  Droitwich  spoke  of  in  the 
recess —  are  they  the  foremost  statesmen  in  the  country  ? 
and,  if  so,  is  there  to  be  a  bid  for  them  to  take  the  place 
of  gentlemen  who  have  not  much  succeeded  as  states- 
men when  in  office  ?  In  office  these  right  hon.  gentle- 
men are  as  docile  as  any  other  gentlemen  in  office,  but 
I  fear,  notwithstanding  the  ideas  some  people  have  of 
my  influence  with  Earl  Russell,  that  I  am  not  able  to 
offer  them  any  arguments  on  his  part  that  will  tell  upon 
them.  I  do  not  object  for  a  moment  to  a  member  of 
this  House  being  fond  of  office.  The  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  probably  lives  much  more  happily  in  office 
than  he  would  live  if  he  were  out  of  it,  though  I  do 
not  think  he  will  live  quite  so  long.  I  do  not  complain 
of  men  who  are  fond  of  office,  though  I  could  never 
comprehend  the  reason  they  like  it  so  much.  If  I  may 
parody,  or  if  I  may  make  an  alteration  in  a  line  or  two 
of  one  of  the  most  beautiful  poems  in  our  language,  I 
might  ask — 

For  who,  to  dumb  forget  fulness  a  prey, 

That  pleasing,  anxious  office  e'er  resigned, 

Left  the  warm  precincts  of  the  Treasury, 
Nor  cast  one  last,  long,  lingering  look  behind  ? 

What  I  complain  of  is  this,  that  when  place  recedes 
into  the  somewhat  dim  past,  that  which  in  office  was 
deemed  patriotism  vanishes  with  it ;  and  we  have  one 
howl  of  despair  from  these  right  hon.  gentlemen  because 
it  is  proposed  to  diminish  the  franchise  in  boroughs 
from  ^10  to  £t,  and  to  add  by  so  small  a  proposition  as 
that  something  to  the  freedom  of  the  people  of  this 
country. 

i86 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

His  description  of  Horsman  and  Lowe  and 
their  friends  in  the  following  memorable  passage 
delighted  the  House  and  added  a  phrase — AduUamite  ^ 
— to  the  English  language  : 

The  right  hon.  gentleman  below  me  [Mr.  Horsman] 
said  a  little  against  the  Government  and  a  little  against 
the  Bill,  but  had  last  night  a  field  night  for  an  attack 
upon  so  humble  an  individual  as  I  am.  The  right  hon. 
gentleman  is  the  first  of  the  new  party  who  has  ex- 
pressed his  great  grief,  who  has  retired  into  what  may 
be  called  bis  political  cave  of  Adullam,  and  he  has 
called  about  him  every  one  that  was  in  distress  and 
every  one  that  was  discontented.  The  right  hon. 
gentleman  has  been  long  anxious  to  form  a  party  in  this 
House.  There  is  scarcely  any  one  on  this  side  of  the 
House  who  is  able  to  address  the  House  with  effect  or 
to  take  much  part  in  our  debates,  whom  he  has  not 
tried  to  bring  over  to  his  party  or  cabal ;  and  at 
last  the  right  hon.  gentleman  has  succeeded  in 
hooking  the  right  hon.  gentleman  the  member 
for  Calne  [Mr.  Lowe].  I  know  there  was  an  opinion 
expressed  many  years  ago  by  a  member  of  the 
Treasury  Bench  and  of  the  Cabinet,  that  two  men 
would  make  a  party.  When  a  party  is  formed  of 
two  men  so  amiable — so  discreet — as  the  two  right 
hon.  gentlemen,  we  may  hope  to  see  for  the  first  time  in 
Parliament  a  party  perfectly  harmonious  and  dis- 
tinguished by  mutual  and  unbroken  trust.  But  there 
is  one  difficulty  which  it  is  impossible  to  remove.     This 

^  The  adherents  of  Lowe  and  Horsman,  seceders  in  1866  from  the 
Reform  Party.  John  Bright  said  of  these  members  that  they  retired 
to  the  cave  of  Adullam,  and  tried  to  gather  round  them  all  the  discon- 
tented. The  allusion  is  to  David  and  his  flight  from  Saul,  who '  escaped 
to  the  cave  Adullam  ;  and  every  one  that  was  in  distress,  and  every 
one  that  was  in  debt,  and  every  one  that  was  discontented,  gathered 
themselves  unto  him  '  (Sam.  xxii.  i,  2). — Brewer,  Dictionary  of  Phrase 
and  Fable. 

187 


JOHN  BRIX^HT 

party  of  two  reminds  one  of  the  Scotch  terrier,  which 
was  so  covered  with  hair  that  you  could  not  tell  which 
was  the  head  and  which  was  the  tail  of  it. 

The  House  had  scarcely  settled  down  soberly  to 
the  discussion  again  after  the  outburst  of  cheers  and 
laughter  with  which  this  sally  was  received,  when 
Bright  turned  once  more  on  Lowe : 

The  right  hon.  member  for  Calne  told  us  that  he 
had  some  peculiar  election  experiences.  There  are 
men  who  make  discord  wherever  they  appear.  The 
right  hon.  gentleman  on  going  down  to  Kidderminster 
got  into  some  unpleasing  altercation  with  somebody, 
and  it  ended  with  his  having  his  head  broken.  But  I  am 
happy  to  say,  and  the  House  will  bear  witness,  that 
with  regard  to  its  power,  that  head  is  probably  as 
strong  now  as  before  he  took  his  leave  of  Kidderminster 
and  went  to  Calne — a  village  in  the  West  of  England. 

The  right  hon.  gentleman  found  on  the  list  of 
electors  at  Calne  one  hundred  and  seventy- four  names, 
of  whom,  according  to  the  Blue  book,  about  seven  were 
working  men.  I  suppose  three  or  four  of  these  were 
probably  keepers  of  shops,  and  some  of  those  whom 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  I  think  improperly 
included  in  his  list.  When  the  right  hon.  member 
went  down  there  he  found  a  tumult  even  more  aggra- 
vated than  at  Kidderminster.  They  did  not  break 
his  head,  but  they  did  something  that  in  the  eye  of  the 
law  was  much  worse,  for  they  shut  up  the  police  in  the 
Town  Hall,  and  the  little  mob  of  this  little  place  had  the 
whole  game  to  themselves.  The  right  hon.  gentleman 
told  us  of  the  polypus,  which  takes  its  colour  from  the 
rock  on  which  it  lives,  and  he  said  that  some  hon. 
members  take  their  colours  from  their  constituencies. 
The  constituency  which  the  right  hon.  gentleman 
represents  consists  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-four 

i88 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

men,  seven  of  whom  are  working  men  ;  but  the  real 
constituent  of  the  right  hon.  gentleman  is  a  member  of 
the  other  House  of  Parhament,  and  he  could  send  in  his 
butler  or  his  groom,  instead  of  the  right  hon.  gentleman, 
to  represent  the  borough.  I  think  in  one  sense — re- 
garding the  right  hon.  gentleman  as  an  intellectual 
gladiator  in  this  House — we  are  much  indebted  to  the 
Marquis  of  Lansdowne  that  he  did  not  do  that. 

The  second  reading  of  the  Bill  was  moved  on 
April  12.  Bright,  who  spoke  on  April  23,  earnestly 
appealed  to  Tories  and  dissentient  Liberals  to  permit 
what  he  described  as  a  measure  of  great  moderation  to 
become  law;  but  he  appealed  in  vain.  The  second 
reading  was  indeed  carried  (on  April  28),  but  only 
by  the  hopeless  majority  of  five — 318  to  313  votes. 
After  a  weary  fight  in  committee  the  measure  was 
finally  defeated  in  June  by  a  majority  of  11  (315  to  304) 
on  the  amendment  of  an  '  Adullamite ' — Lord  Dunkellin 
— who  proposed  that  a  £6  rating  franchise  should  be 
substituted  for  a  £7  rental ;  ^  Earl  Russell  immediately 
resigned,  and  Lord  Derby  became  Prime  Minister,  with 
Mr.  Disraeli  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  During 
the  summer,  autumn,  and  winter  there  was  much  excite- 
ment and  agitation  in  the  country,  and  many  great 
meetings  were  held. 

The  Committee  of  the  Reform  League  in  London 
proposed  to  hold  a  meeting  in  Hyde  Park  on  July  23. 
The  Home  Secretary  (Mr.  Walpole)  forbade  the  meeting, 
but  the  people  gathered  in  thousands,  resisted  the  police, 

*  The  effect  of  this  amendment  was  practically  regarded  as  raising 
the  proposed  borough  franchise  from  £j  to  £g.  See  Paul,  History 
of  Reform,  p.  196. 

189 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

broke  down  the  railings,  and  entered  the  Park.  The 
Home  Secretary  was  frightened ;  ParUament  was 
frightened  ;  and  Mr.  DisraeH  (who  was  not  frightened, 
but  who  wished  to  stimulate  the  '  terror ')  made  an 
alarmist  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons  (where  the 
subject  came  up  for  discussion),  saying  that  he  was 
not  quite  sure  that  he  had  still  a  house  to  go  to.i 
*  The  Hyde  Park  riot,'  says  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy, 
'  convinced  Her  Majesty's  Ministers  of  the  necessity 
of  an  immediate  adoption  of  the  reform  principles.' 
Lord  Derby  had  tried  to  induce  some  of  the  most 
prominent  of  the  '  Adullamites '  to  join  his  Ministry,  but 
without  success.  He  had  even  asked  Lord  Clarendon 
to  remain  at  the  Foreign  Office,  but  the  invitation  was 
declined.  Lord  Derby  was  of  course,  like  the  whole  of 
the  Tory  Party,  strongly  opposed  to  Reform,  but  Mr. 
Disraeli,  though  he  voted  and  spoke  against  Mr. 
Gladstone's  Bill,  had  no  objection  to  Reform,  provided 
he  could  use  the  movement  for  the  purpose  of  dishing 
the  Whigs.  There  were  people  who  thought  that  Lord 
Derby's  Government,  despite  the  fact  that  it  had  got 
into  office  by  rejecting  a  Reform  Bill,  might  by  the 
manoeuvres  of  Mr.  Disraeli  be  persuaded  to  perform  a 
volte  face  and  introduce  a  Reform  Bill  of  its  own. 
Bright  did  not  believe  that  this  was  possible,  and  he 
warned  his  fellow  countrymen  not  to  allow  themselves 
to  be  misled  by  the  masquerading  antics  of  the 
Ministry.  Speaking  at  Birmingham  on  August  27, 
1866,  he  said: 

The   Government  of  Lord  Derby  in    the    House 

*  McCarthy,  History  of  Our  Own  Times,  vol.  iv.  p.  83. 
190 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

of  Commons,  sitting  all  in  a  row,  reminds  me  very 
much  of  a  number  of  amusing  and  ingenious  gentlemen 
whom  I  dare  say  some  of  you  have  seen  and  listened  to. 
I  mean  the  Christy  Minstrels.  The  Christy  Minstrels, 
if  I  am  not  misinformed,  are,  when  they  are  clean 
washed,  white  men  ;  but  they  come  before  the  audience 
as  black  as  the  blackest  negroes,  and  by  this  transforma- 
tion it  is  expected  that  their  jokes  and  songs  will  be 
more  amusing.  The  Derby  minstrels  pretend  to  be 
Liberal  and  white  ;  but  the  fact  is  if  you  come  nearer 
and  examine  them  closely  you  will  find  them  to  be  just 
as  black  and  curly  as  the  Tories  have  ever  been.  I  do 
not  know,  and  I  will  not  pretend  to  say,  which  of  them 
it  is  that  plays  the  banjo  and  which  the  bones.  But 
I  have  no  doubt  that,  in  their  manoeuvres  to  keep  in 
office  during  the  coming  Session,  we  shall  know  some- 
thing more  about  them  than  we  do  at  present ;  they 
are  in  point  of  fact,  when  they  pretend  to  be  Liberal, 
mere  usurpers  and  impostors.  Their  party  will  not 
allow  them  to  be  Liberal,  and  they  exist  only  upon  the 
principle  upon  which  they  have  acted  in  all  their  past 
history,  of  resisting  and  rejecting  every  proposition  of 
a  Liberal  character  that  has  been  submitted  to  them. 

Bright  was  freely  attacked,  in  those  days,  by  Tory 
speakers,  and  by  the  Tory  Press,  as  the  fons  et  origo 
of  all  the  trouble  and  excitement,  and  even  danger, 
which  attended  the  Reform  movement.  In  dealing 
with  his  assailants,  in  a  speech  delivered  in  London 
on  December  4,  1866,  he  not  only  vindicated  his 
own  position,  but  vindicated  the  position  of  the  re- 
formers and  agitators  of  all  times,  whose  aims  have 
been  constantly  misunderstood — perhaps  wilfully  mis- 
understood— by  the  privileged  classes,  who  seemed  to 
be  ever  incapable  of  realising  the  calamities  which 
injustice  and  wrong  are  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  bring 

191 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

about,  involving,  it  may  be,  in  general  disaster,  the  ruin 
of  their  own  order.      He  said  : 

These  opponents  of  ours,  many  of  them  in  Parlia- 
ment openly,  and  many  of  them  secretly  in  the  Press, 
have  charged  us  with  being  the  promoters  of  a 
dangerous  excitement.  They  say  we  are  the  source 
of  the  danger  which  threatens  ;  they  have  absolutely 
the  effrontery  to  charge  me  with  being  the  friend  of 
public  disorder.  I  am  one  of  the  people.  Surely,  if 
there  be  one  thing  in  a  free  country  more  clear  than 
another,  it  is  that  any  one  of  the  people  may  speak 
openly  to  the  people.  If  I  speak  to  the  people  of  their 
rights,  and  indicate  to  them  the  way  to  secure  them — 
if  I  speak  of  their  danger  to  the  monopolists  of  power- 
am  I  not  a  wise  counsellor,  both  to  the  people  and  to 
their  rulers  ?  Suppose  I  stood  at  the  foot  of  Vesuvius 
or  Etna,  and,  seeing  a  hamlet  or  a  homestead  planted 
on  its  slope,  I  said  to  the  dwellers  in  that  hamlet  or  in 
that  homestead,  'You  see  that  vapour  which  ascends 
from  the  summit  of  the  mountain ;  that  vapour  may 
become  a  dense  black  smoke  that  will  obscure  the  sky. 
You  see  that  trickling  of  lava  from  the  crevices  or 
fissures  in  the  side  of  the  mountain  ;  that  trickling  of 
lava  may  become  a  river  of  fire.  You  hear  that 
muttering  in  the  bowels  of  the  mountain ;  that 
muttering  may  become  a  bellowing  thunder,  the  voice 
of  a  violent  convulsion  that  may  shake  half  a  continent. 
You  know  that  at  your  feet  is  the  grave  of  great  cities 
for  which  there  is  no  resurrection,  and  history  tells  us  that 
dynasties  and  aristocracies  have  passed  away  and  their 
name  has  been  known  no  more  for  ever.'  If  I  say  this 
to  the  dwellers  upon  the  slope  of  the  mountain,  and  if 
there  comes  hereafter  a  catastrophe  which  makes  the 
world  to  shudder,  am  I  responsible  for  that  catastrophe? 
I  did  not  build  the  mountain,  or  fill  it  with  explosive 
materials,  I  merely  warned  the  men  that  were  in  danger. 

192 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

The  story  of  the  Reform  Bill  of  1867  is  so  farcical 
that  the  reader  may  be  well  excused  if  he  refuse  to 
believe  it.  Yet  it  is  true  as  gospel.  I  shall  tell  it  with 
the  utmost  brevity. 

Mr.  Disraeli  was  the  genius  of  the  Derby  Ministry 
of  1866-68.  I  think  we  may  easily  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  during  the  discussions  on  Mr.  Gladstone's 
Bill,  if  not  earlier,  he  had  made  up  his  mind  that  a 
reform  in  the  franchise  was  inevitable.  But  he  played 
the  game.  He  seized  every  opportunity  to  embarrass 
the  Government  of  Lord  Russell,  to  defeat  their  Reform 
Bill,  and  to  drive  them  from  office.  Now,  however,  in 
office  himself,  he  was  determined  to  introduce  and  carry 
a  Reform  Bill  of  some  sort  or  other,  come  what  might. 
But  how  was  he  to  manage  his  chief ;  how  was  he  to 
manage  his  colleagues  in  the  Cabinet ;  how  the  whole 
Tory  Party,  how  the  House  of  Commons  ?  To  place  a 
Reform  Bill  on  the  statute  book,  amid  the  difficulties  of 
the  situation,  was  a  task  for  a  man  of  genius ;  but 
Mr.  Disraeli  was,  we  all  know,  a  man  of  genius.  On 
February  11,  1867,  he  announced  to  the  House  of 
Commons  his  intention  of  introducing  a  series  of 
Resolutions  forecasting  the  nature  of  the  Bill  which 
the  Government  intended  to  propose.  The  Resolutions 
which  he  had  framed  were,  in  the  main,  vague,  general, 
and  academical.  They  found  favour  with  no  section 
of  the  House,  and  were  not  pressed  to  a  division. 

'  February  11. — Disraeli,'  says  Lord  Malmesbury, 
'  laid  our  Reform  Resolutions  on  the  table.  He  dis- 
satisfied the  House  by  too  long  and  ambiguous  a  speech/ 

On  February  23,1  there  was  a  meeting  of  the  Cabinet. 

*  McCarthy. 

193  " 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Disraeli,  be  it  said,  seems  to  have  prepared  two  Reform 
Bills,  one  of  a  comprehensive,  the  other  of  a  feeble 
character.  Sir  John  Pakington,  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty,  tells  us  that  he  (Sir  John)  was  under  the 
impression  that  the  Cabinet  were  all  agreed  in  favour 
of  the  introduction  of  the  comprehensive  Bill,  but  at 
this  meeting  of  February  23  General  Peel  objected 
to  it,  saying  that  it  was  too  extreme.  Lord  Cranborne 
asked  General  Peel  to  reconsider  the  subject  before 
finally  coming  to  a  conclusion,  and  the  General  agreed 
to  do  so.  On  Sunday  Lord  Cranborne  read  the  Bill 
carefully  himself,  and  was  scandalised  to  find  that  it 
proposed  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  establish- 
ment of  household  suffrage  pure  and  simple  in  the 
boroughs,  though  the  concession  was  to  be  hedged  by 
safeguards  in  the  shape  of  plural  voting.  He  at  once 
informed  Lord  Derby  that  he  could  not  support  the 
Bill.  On  Monday  (25th)  there  was  a  hurried  meeting 
of  the  Cabinet.  Lord  Cranborne  said  that  if  the  Bill 
were  introduced  he  would  resign  ;  and  General  Peel 
and  Lord  Carnarvon  threatened  to  take  the  same 
course.  In  these  circumstances  the  comprehensive  Bill 
was  abandoned,  and  the  feeble  measure  adopted,  by  the 
Cabinet.  On  that  same  afternoon  Mr.  Disraeli,  giving 
up  the  Resolutions  which  he  had  previously  laid  on 
the  table  of  the  House,  introduced  the  milder  Reform 
Bill  which  he  had  had  prepared,  and  which  the  Cabinet 
of  the  23rd  had  hastily  accepted.  This  Bill  proposed  to 
establish  a  £6  rating  franchise  in  boroughs,  and  a  £20 
rating  franchise  in  counties.  There  were  also  several 
*  fancy '  franchises  about  which  we  need  not  trouble 
ourselves.     The  Bill  was  contemptuously  received  by 

194 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

the  House.  Disraeli  saw  that  it  had  no  chance,  and 
next  day  he  came  down  to  the  House,  withdrew  it,  and 
declared  that  a  new  Bill  would  be  introduced  immedi- 
ately. On  March  i8  he  introduced  a  new  Bill, 
which  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  comprehensive 
measure  which  he  had  originally  prepared  ;  and  Lord 
Cranborne,  Lord  Carnarvon,  and  General  Peel  left  the 
Ministry.  The  main  provisions  of  the  new  Bill  were — 
the  establishment  of  household  suffrage  in  the  boroughs, 
conditional  on  two  years'  residence  and  personal  pay- 
ment of  rates  ;  and  the  reduction  of  the  franchise  in 
counties  to  £15.  Bright  did  not  care  very  much  for  the 
Bill  as  it  stood  ;  but  he  was  not  without  hope  that  it 
might  be  hammered  into  shape  in  committee,  and 
therefore  ultimately  resolved  to  support  the  second 
reading,  while  frankly  telling  Ministers  what  he  thought 
of  them  and  their  Bill.  Of  course  he  recognised  that 
Disraeli  had,  contrary  to  his  expectations,  turned  a 
complete  political  summersault.     He  said  : 

The  Bill  as  a  whole  I  regard  as  very  unsatisfactory. 
It  has  marks  upon  it  of  being  the  product,  not  of  the 
friends,  but  of  the  enemies  of  Reform.  It  is  wonderful 
what  clever  men  will  do  when  a  dozen  of  them  are 
shut  up  in  a  room.  Now,  look  at  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer :  he  is  a  marvel  of  cleverness,  or 
else  he  would  not  have  been  for  twenty  years  at  the 
head  of  hon.  gentlemen  opposite,  to  lead  them  on  to 
this — what  shall  I  call  it  ? — great  difficulty  at  last. 
Take  the  right  hon.  member  who  sits  next  to  him, 
representing  a  very  learned  university,  Cambridge 
[Mr.  Walpole].  Take  the  President  of  the  Poor 
Law  Board  [Mr.  Gathorne  Hardy],  who  represents  the 
wisdom,  and  it  may  be,  to  some  extent,  the  prejudices, 

T95 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

of  Oxford.  Take  the  right  hon.  member  for  Droit wich 
[Sir  John  Pakington] ;  I  fear  to  speak  of  so  potent  a 
personage.  At  this  very  moment  he  directs  the  whole  of 
the  armies  of  the  Empire.  There  is  not  a  soldier  who 
shivers  amid  the  snows  of  Canada  or  who  sweats  under 
the  sun  of  India,  but  shivers  and  sweats  under  the 
influence  of  the  right  hon.  gentleman.  It  was  only  the 
other  day  he  was  Lord  High  Admiral  of  England.  His 
*  march  was  on  the  mountain  wave/  his  '  home  was  on 
the  deep.'  But  all  these  gentlemen  retire  into  a 
mysterious  apartment  in  Downing  Street,  and  they 
set  to  work  and  concoct  a  Reform  Bill ;  and  with  all 
their  capacity,  it  seems  to  me  to  come  out  a  Bill  marvel- 
lously like  that  which  would  have  been  made  by  the 
hon.  member  for  North  Lincolnshire  [Mr.  Banks 
Stanhope],  who  last  night  gave  us  an  account  of  his  con- 
version. Anything  more  affecting  could  hardly  be 
heard  in  any  class-meeting.  But  he  spoke  of  '  we  ' 
all  this  time — what  '  we  '  did,  what  determinations 
'  we  '  had  come  to.  In  thinking  it  over  to-day,  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  is  the  author  of  this 
Bill.  It  would  leave  the  greatest  question  of  our  time 
absolutely  unsolved.  Sir,  it  seems  to  me  impossible  to 
assist  a  Government  which  will  not  tell  us  frankly  what 
it  intends,  what  it  stands  by,  what  it  will  get  rid  of — 
which  asks  us  to  go  into  its  confidence,  and  yet  is  prob- 
ably the  most  reticent  Government  that  ever  sat  on 
those  benches.  If  any  gentlemen  on  this  side  were 
to  treat  you  as  you  treated  us  last  year,  I  should  de- 
nounce them  with  the  strongest  language  I  could  use. 
I  hate  the  ways,  I  scorn  the  purposes  of  faction  ;  and  if 
I  am  driven  now,  or  at  any  stage  of  this  Bill,  to  oppose 
the  Government,  it  is  because  the  measure  they  have 
offered  to  us  bears  upon  its  face  marks  of  deception  and 
disappointment,  and  because  I  will  be  no  party  to  any 
Bill  which  would  cheat  the  great  body  of  my  country- 
men of  the  possession  of  that  power  in  this  House  on 

196 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

which  they  have  set  their  hearts,  and  which,  as  I  beheve, 
by  the  Constitution  of  this  country  they  may  most 
justly  claim. 

The  Bill  was  read  a  second  time  on  March  27, 
without  opposition,  and  amended  drastically  in  com- 
mittee. The  following  summary  of  what  it  was  when 
first  introduced,  and  of  what  it  became  before  taking  its 
place  on  the  statute  book,  will  give  a  fair  idea  of  Mr. 
Disraeli's  accommodating  disposition  on  the  question  : 

Original  Bill  Bill  as  Passed 

Household  franchise  in  Household     franchise, 

boroughs,  conditional  on  conditional  on  one  year's 
two  years'  residence  and  residence;  compound 
personal  payment  of  rates,     householder  abolished,  the 

occupier  alone  being  rated. 

£15  franchise  in  coun-  ;^I2  franchise  in  coun- 

ties, ties. 

Educational    franchise  No    educational   fran- 

for  graduates  or  associates  chise. 
in  Arts  of  any  university 
of  the  United  Kingdom, 
for  those  who  passed  senior 
middle-class  examinations, 
for  clergymen,  professional 
men,  and  schoolmasters. 

A  pecuniary  franchise  No     pecuniary     fran- 

for  savings-bank  deposi-  chise. 
tors  with  balance  of 
£50,  fund-holders  of  like 
amount,  and  direct  tax- 
payers to  the  amount  of 
£1  per  annuni. 

197 


JOHN  BRIGHT 


Bill  as  Passed 
No  dual  voting. 


Original  Bill 

Dual  voting — a  pro- 
vision entitling  the  holder 
of  the  pecuniary  franchise 
to  vote  for  the  same 
borough  in  respect  of  any 
franchise  involving  occu- 
pation of  premises  and 
payment  of  rates. 

Voting  papers. 

No  lodger  franchise. 

No  cumulative  vote  or 
three-cornered  constitu- 
encies, these  being  de- 
clared by  Mr.  Disraeli  as 
erroneous  in  principle  and 
pernicious  in  practice. 

Twenty-three      towns,  Thirty-five   towns, 

under  7,000  in  population,     below   10,000   in   popula- 
to    be    deprived    of    one    tion,     deprived     of     one 
member;       and    Totnes,     member.  Eleven  boroughs 
Reigate,  Great  Yarmouth    ultimately  disfranchised, 
and  Lancaster,  convicted 
of  corrupt  practices,  to  be 
disfranchised. 

Fourteen   of   the   new  Eighteen   of   the   new 


No  voting  papers. 

A  ;f  10  lodger  franchise. 

Four     three  -  cornered 
constituencies. 


seats  to  be  given  to 
boroughs,  fifteen  to  coun- 
ties, and  one  to  London 
University. 


seats  to  boroughs,  twenty- 
five  to  counties,  and  one  to 
London  University,  one 
seat  being  afterwards 
given  to  Wales  and  seven 
to  Scotland. 


198 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM 

Original  Bill  Bill  as  Passed 

No  third  members  to  Third  members  given 

Manchester,        Liverpool,     to  Manchester,  Liverpool, 
Birmingham,    and   Leeds.     Birmingham  and  Leeds.i 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Mr.  Disraeli  gave  way 
almost  all  along  the  line,  under  the  pressure  of  the 
Opposition.  It  was  no  wonder  that  an  honest  Tory 
with  convictions  like  General  Peel  should  have  ex- 
claimed that  there  was  '  nothing  with  less  vitality  than 
a  vital  point,  nothing  so  insecure  as  the  securities  that 
the  Bill  offered,  and  nothing  so  elastic  as  the  conscience 
of  a  Cabinet  Minister.' 

Bright  put  the  matter  in  another  way.  He  quoted 
the  well-known  lines  of  Hosea  Bigelow  : 

A  merciful  Providence  fashioned  them  hollow, 

On  purpose  that  they  might  their  principles  swallow. 

Lord  Cranborne  was  astonished  to  hear  the  passing 
of  the  Bill  described  as  a  Conservative  triumph.  .  .  . 
'  If,'  he  said, '  the  adoption  of  the  principles  of  Mr.  Bright 
be  a  triumph,  then  the  Conservative  Party,  in  the  whole 
history  of  its  previous  annals,  had  won  no  triumph  so 
signal  as  this.'  He  declared  that  'the  monarchical 
principle  was  dead,  the  aristocratical  principle  doomed 
to  death,  and  the  democratic  principle  was  trium- 
phant.'^ 

Mr.  Disraeli's  own  account  of  his  operations  is  sub- 
lime. Speaking  at  a  banquet  at  Edinburgh  in  October, 
he  said  :  '  I  had  to  prepare  the  mind  of  the  country,  and 
to  educate — if  it  be  not  arrogant  to  use  such  a  phrase — 
to  educate  our  party.     It  is  a  large  party,  and  requires 

^  Paul.  2  Annual  Register  for  1867,  p.  88. 

199 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

its  attention  to  be  called  to  questions  of  this  kind  with 
some  pressure/  Punch's  description  of  the  situation  is 
excellent.  Disraeli  is  represented  as  '  Puff  at  St. 
Stephen's.'  He  is  in  evening  dress  with  a  roll  of  paper 
in  his  left  hand.  On  their  knees  before  the  footlights 
are  Lord  Derby,  Lord  Stanley,  and  other  Ministers. 
'  Puff's '  right  hand  is  outstretched,  the  right  hands 
of  all  the  others  are  outstretched  in  the  same  way. 
Puff  says,  '  Now,  pray,  all  together.' 

AIL    Behold  thy  votaries  submissive  beg, 

That  thou  wilt  deign  to  grant  them  all  they  ask ; 
Assist  them  to  accomplish  all  their  ends, 
And  sanctify  whatever  means  they  use 
To  gain  them  ! 

Between  1852  and  1884  Bright  had  practically  led 
the  Reform  movement  in  England,  amid  much  opposi- 
tion and  many  difficulties,  to  complete  success.  In 
1858  he  had,  as  we  have  seen,  prepared  a  Bill  proposing  to 
establish  household  suffrage  and  vote  by  ballot.  He 
was  not,  as  he  said,  afraid  of  manhood  suffrage,  but  it 
was  not  practicable,  and  he  only  wished  to  push  his 
principles  as  far  as  they  were  practicable.  In  1867 
household  suffrage  was  established  in  the  boroughs. 
In  1872  vote  by  ballot  was  granted.  In  1884  house- 
hold suffrage  was  established  in  counties  as  well  as  in 
boroughs.  '  Bright 's  principles,'  to  adopt  the  language 
of  Lord  Cranborne,  '  were  indeed  triumphant.' 


200 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   HOUSE   OF  LORDS 

Bright  had  no  faith  in  aristocratic  institutions. 
He  spoke  contemptuously  of  peers,  lay  and  spiritual. 
He  said  that  he  could  never  find  out  what  good  the 
House  of  Lords  had  done  at  any  time.  His  account  of 
the  institution,  in  a  speech  delivered  in  1858,  must  be 
given : 

But  there  is  a  very  serious  question  to  be  decided 
before  we  can  almost  take  a  step.  When  you  are  about 
to  reform  the  House  of  Commons,  are  your  eyes  to  be 
turned  to  the  House  of  Peers,  or  to  the  great  body  of 
the  nation  ?  The  House  of  Peers,  as  you  know,  does 
not  travel  very  fast — even  what  is  called  a  Parlia- 
mentary train  is  too  fast  for  its  nerves  ;  in  fact,  it 
never  travels  at  all  unless  somebody  shoves  it.  If  any 
man  proposes  to  reform  the  House  of  Commons  just  so 
much  as  and  no  more  than  will  allow  it  to  keep  pace 
with  the  wishes  of  the  House  of  Lords,  I  would  ask  him 
not  to  take  any  trouble  in  the  matter,  but  just  to  leave 
it  exactly  where  it  is.  If  you  want  it  to  represent  the 
nation,  then  it  is  another  question  ;  and,  having  come 
to  that  conclusion,  if  we  have  come  to  it,  there  is  no 
great  mystery,  I  think,  as  to  the  manner  in  which  it  can 
be  brought  about.  The  question  between  the  peers  and 
the  people  is  one  which  cannot  be  evaded.     It  is  the 

201 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

great  difficulty  in  the  way  of  our  friends  at  head- 
quarters who  are  for  Reform,  but  do  not  know  how  to 
meet  it.  It  was  the  difficulty  which  Lord  John  Russell 
felt.  Lord  John  Russell — I  believe  you  may  take  my 
word  for  it — has  probably,  from  association,  from 
tradition,  from  his  own  reading  and  study,  and  from 
his  own  just  and  honest  sympathy,  a  more  friendly 
feeling  towards  this  question  of  Parliamentary  Reform 
than  any  other  man  of  his  order  as  a  statesman.  But, 
having  said  this,  I  must  also  say — what  he,  too,  would 
say  if  he  thought  it  prudent  to  tell  all  he  knew — that  this 
is  the  great  difficulty  with  him.  How  can  I  reconcile  a 
free  representation  of  the  people  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons with  the  inevitable  disposition  which  rests  in  a 
hereditary  House  of  Peers  ?  Now,  we  must  decide  this 
question.  Choose  you  this  day  whom  you  will  serve. 
If  the  peers  are  to  be  your  masters,  as  they  boast  that 
their  ancestors  were  the  conquerors  of  yours,  serve 
them.  But,  if  you  will  serve  only  the  laws,  the  laws 
of  your  country,  the  laws  in  making  which  you  have 
been  consulted,  you  may  go  on  straight  to  discuss  this 
great  question  of  Parliamentary  Reform. 

I  am  not  going  to  attack  the  House  of  Lords.  Some 
people  tell  us  that  the  House  of  Lords  has  in  its  time 
done  great  things  for  freedom.  It  may  be  so,  though 
I  have  not  been  so  successful  in  finding  out  how  or 
where  as  some  people  have  been.  At  least  since  1690, 
or  thereabouts,  when  the  peers  became  the  dominant 
power  in  this  country,  I  am  scarcely  able  to  discover 
one  single  measure  important  to  human  or  English 
freedom  which  has  come  from  the  voluntary  consent 
and  good-will  of  their  House. 

He  once  described  a  peer  thus  : 

You  know  what  a  peer  is.  He  is  one  of  those  fortu- 
nate individuals  who  are  described  as  coming  into  the 
world  *  with  a  silver  spoon  in  their  mouths.'     Or,  to  use 

202 


THE  HOUSE  OF  LORDS 

the  more  polished  and  elaborate  phraseology  of  the 
poet,  it  may  be  said  of  him — 

Fortune  came  smiling  to  his  youth  and  woo'd  it, 
And  purpled  greatness  met  his  ripened  years. 

When  he  is  a  boy,  among  his  brothers  and  sisters,  he  is 
pre-eminent :  he  is  the  eldest  son  ;  he  will  be  '  My 
Lord '  ;  this  fine  mansion,  this  beautiful  park,  these 
countless  farms,  this  vast  political  influence  will  one 
day  centre  on  this  innocent  boy.  The  servants  know  it, 
and  pay  him  greater  deference  on  account  of  it.  He 
grows  up  and  goes  to  school  and  college  ;  his  future 
position  is  known  ;  he  has  no  great  incitement  to  work 
hard,  because  whatever  he  does  it  is  very  difficult  to 
improve  his  fortune  in  any  way.  When  he  leaves  college 
he  has  a  secure  position  ready-made  for  him,  and  there 
seems  to  be  no  reason  why  he  should  follow  ardently 
any  of  those  occupations  which  make  men  great  among 
their  fellow-men.  Hie  takes  his  seat  in  the  House  of 
Peers ;  whatever  be  his  character,  whatever  his  intellect, 
whatever  his  previous  life,  whether  he  be  in  England 
or  ten  thousand  miles  away ;  be  he  tottering  down  the 
steep  of  age,  or  be  he  passing  through  the  imbecility 
of  second  childhood,  yet  by  means  of  that  charming 
contrivance — made  only  for  peers — vote  by  proxy,  he 
gives  his  vote  for  or  against,  and,  unfortunately,  too 
often  against,  all  those  great  measures  on  which  you 
and  the  country  have  set  your  hearts.  There  is  another 
kind  of  peer  which  I  am  afraid  to  touch  upon — that 
creature  of — what  shall  I  say  ? — of  monstrous,  nay, 
even  of  adulterous  birth — the  spiritual  peer.  I  assure 
you  with  the  utmost  frankness  and  sincerity  that  it  is 
not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  men  in  these  positions 
should  become  willing  fountains  from  which  can  flow 
great  things  for  the  freedom  of  any  country.  We  are 
always  told  that  the  peers  are  necessary  as  a  check. 
If  that  is  so,  I  must  say  they  answer  their  purpose 
admirably. 

203 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

In  1884  the  Parliamentary  Franchise  Bill  passed  the 
second  reading  in  the  Commons  by  340  to  210  votes 
It  was  rejected  in  the  Lords  by  205  to  146   votes 
Immediately    afterwards   Bright    addressed    a   great 
meeting    at    Bingley  Hall,    Birmingham,    and    dealt 
roundly  with  their  lordships.     He  began  : 

Now,  will  you  allow  me  to  put  a  question  or  two  to 
you,  and  in  some  sort  to  myself  ?  I  should  like  to  ask 
who  and  what  are  these  peers,  who  take  upon  them- 
selves this  authority  ?  To  look  at  them,  if  you  saw 
them  entering  the  House  or  leaving  it,  you  would 
observe  that  they  are  very  much  like  other  men.  They 
are  not  taller,  they  are  not  stronger,  they  have  no  claim, 
I  believe,  to  be  called  more  learned.  We  know  that  the 
bulk  of  them  are  not  more  accustomed  to  business,  and 
we  believe  and  we  feel  that  they  have  less  sympathy 
than  other  men  with  their  fellow-countrymen. 

Having  shown  the  immense  territorial  power  and 
influence  of  the  peers,  he  continued  : 

But  now,  when  we  come  to  the  question  of  their 
position  as  lords — because  that  is  what  we  have  now 
to  deal  with — well,  we  call  them,  as  you  know,  the 
Upper  House — and  when  a  Bill  leaves  the  House  of 
Commons  it  has  gone  up  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  if  a 
Bill  comes  from  the  House  of  Lords  it  has  gone  down  to 
the  House  of  Commons.  I  do  not  know  why  that 
distinction  is  made.  But,  now,  will  you  consider  this 
fact :  that  the  members  of  the  House  of  Lords  do  not 
enter  that  House  in  any  degree  from  any  personal  merit 
that  attaches  to  them.  It  is  not  because  they  have 
performed  any  good  or  great  deeds  that  have  recom- 
mended them  to  the  favour  of  their  fellow-countrymen. 
It  is  not  by  the  choice  of  or  by  the  approval  of  their 
fellow-men  that  they  become  members  of  the  House  of 

204 


THE  HOUSE  OF  LORDS 

Peers  and  legislators  for  a  great  nation.  It  was  once 
said  in  ages  past — whether  it  was  a  dream  or  not  I  will 
not  say — that  the  path  to  the  temple  of  honour  lay 
through  the  temple  of  virtue.  But  the  law-making 
peer,  he  never  dreams  that  he  is  going  to  the  temple 
of  legislative  honour  through  the  temple  of  virtue  ; 
but  if  he  does  not  know,  we  all  know  that  he  goes  into 
the  temple  of  honour  through  the  sepulchre  of  a  dead 
ancestor.  We  will  go  a  little  further.  When  he  has 
once  entered  this  temple  of  honour,  you  need  not  be 
reminded  that  he  has  gone  there  without  nomination 
such  as  your  own  representatives  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons must  have — he  has  gone  there  without  any  con- 
test with  conflicting  opinion  in  any  constituency — he 
has  gone  there  without  any  cost  of  labour  or  of  money 
to  enable  him  to  take  his  seat  in  the  legislative  assembly 
where  he  appears.  You  will  recollect,  moreover,  that 
in  his  case  there  is  no  dissolution  of  Parliament. 
Whatever  be  the  list,  long  or  short,  of  follies  or  crimes 
which  he  has  committed,  there  is  no  punishment  that 
can  be  inflicted  upon  him,  as  there  is  by  a  constituency 
upon  a  member  who  neglects  or  betrays  them,  and 
in  point  of  fact  there  is  no  such  thing  for  him  as  political 
death,  for  with  the  peer  there  is  political  immortality. 

Having  dwelt  on  the  obstructive  tactics  of  the  Lords, 
and  emphasised  the  fact  that  they  had  persistently 
opposed  all  measures  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  and 
the  progress  of  popular  liberty,  he  declared  that  the 
time  had  come  for  bridling  their  powers  for  mischief, 
and  for  obliging  them  to  bow  to  the  will  of  the  nation. 
The  power  of  the  Crown,  he  said,  had  been  curbed,  and 
it  was  necessary  to  curb  the  power  of  the  Lords  if  the 
rights  of  the  people  were  to  be  maintained.  But  how 
was  the  House  of  Lords  to  be  dealt  with  ?  What  was 
the  remedy  for  the  evils  of  its  unchecked  authority  ? 

205 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

The  question — which  we  have  before  us  now — is  this 
fact,  that  the  Lords  do  now  what  the  despotic  monarchs 
did  formerly  ;  and  the  question  which  I  put  to  you,  and 
from  this  platform  to  all  the  people  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  is  this  :  Shall  we  submit  ?  Shall  we  sub- 
mit, or  curb  them — curb  the  nobles — as  our  fathers 
curbed  our  kings  ?  Now,  I  may  assure  you  that  the 
veto  of  the  monarch  was  as  legal  in  those  days,  and  was 
as  much  cherished  by  the  monarch,  as  any  despotic 
power  could  be.  It  was  given  up  and  abolished,  but 
the  Crown  was  not  overturned.  The  Throne  remained, 
and  the  Throne  remained  with  an  unimpaired  dignity, 
and  from  that  time  to  this  has  been  held  in  great  and 
just  reverence  by  the  great  mass  of  the  people  of  this 
country.  Well,  now,  how  should  we  curb  them  ?  At 
present  you  know  that  within  their  own  walls  they  are, 
in  a  sense,  omnipotent.  They  can  if  they  like,  I 
believe,  turn  out  any  one  of  their  own  members  in  the 
same  way  that  the  House  of  Commons  has  turned  out 
one  of  its  members.  They  can  reject  a  Bill  sent  up 
from  the  House  of  Commons  as  they  rejected  the  Bill  for 
the  Repeal  of  the  Paper  Duty  in  i860,  and  as  they  have 
rejected  the  Franchise  Bill  now.  Now,  the  proposition 
that  I  should  make  would  be  this  :  that  they  should 
have,  unimpaired,  all  the  power  they  have  now  with 
regard  to  any  Bill  that  has  passed  the  House  of 
Commons  for  the  first  time  during  the  Session  in  which 
the  Lords  are  called  upon  to  deal  with  it.  That  is,  in 
the  case  of  this  Bill  they  would  be  at  liberty  to  amend 
it,  and  send  it  back  to  the  Commons.  If  the  Commons 
did  not  like  the  amendments,  and  would  not  accept 
them,  the  Bill  would  go  back  to  the  Lords,  and  if  the 
Lords  chose  they  might  reject  it.  But  in  a  second 
Session,  if  practically  the  same  Bill  was  sent  up  to  the 
Lords,  they  would  then  also  have  a  right  to  debate 
and  to  amend  ;  but  when  the  Bill  came  down  to  the 
House  of  Commons  in  this  second  Session,  and  the 

206 


THE  HOUSE  OF  LORDS 

Commons  would  not  agree  to  the  amendments  of  the 
Lords,  then  the  Lords  should  be  bound  to  accept  the 
Bill. 

Now,  what  would  remain  to  the  peerage  ?  There 
would  this  remain — the  peerage  and  its  titles.  There 
would  be,  as  now,  members  of  the  House  of  Lords. 
There  would  remain  dukes,  and  marquises,  and  earls, 
and  viscounts,  and  barons,  as  now.  They  would  be 
members  of  the  House  of  Lords  ;  but  I  venture  to  sug- 
gest, and  I  am  sure  I  am  correct  in  the  opinion,  that  the 
change  which  I  have  proposed  would  entirely  and  most 
beneficially  change  the  character  and  the  conduct  of 
the  House  of  Lords.  Remember  that  the  dignity  of  the 
aristocratic  and  titled  classes,  apart  from  the  question  of 
the  Lords  in  Parliament,  would  remain  the  same.  As 
our  forefathers  abolished  the  veto  of  the  Crown,  and 
sustained  and  did  not  diminish  the  dignity  of  the 
Crown,  so,  I  believe,  we  might  limit  the  veto  of  the 
peers  in  Parliament,  leaving  the  peers  to  their  estates 
and  their  great  advantages,  and  to  the  titles  by  which 
and  under  which  they  are  now  known  amongst  their 
countrymen.  But  the  absolute  power  would  be  gone  ; 
the  power  of  the  peers  in  Parliament  would  henceforth 
be  limited.  The  result  would  be — what  ?  That  in- 
stead of  500  peers  all  over  the  country  being  liable  to 
be  summoned  to  the  House  of  Lords  for  a  particular 
vote,  as  they  were  by  the  late  Lord  Derby  in  i860,  to 
throw  out  the  Paper  Duty  Repeal  Bill,  and  as  they  were 
three  or  four  weeks  ago  by  Lord  Salisbury  to  come 
up  and  throw  out  this  Franchise  Bill — men  who  were 
not  known  to  many  in  the  House  of  Lords — men  who 
came  to  the  door  and  were  not  even  known  to  the  door- 
keepers— if  this  change  which  I  have  suggested  were 
made,  that  ceremony  would  be  extinguished  for  ever. 
They  would  know  that  although  they  threw  the  Bill 
out  now,  in  July  or  August,  that  the  Bill  could  be 
presented  to  them  again  in  the  spring  of  next  year, 

207 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

when  its  denial  and  its  rejection  would  be  a  thing 
contrary  to  the  Constitution. 

In  passing  from  this  subject  I  shall  quote  the  Resolu- 
tions, limiting  the  veto  of  the  House  of  Lords,  which 
were  passed  by  the  House  of  Commons  in  April  1910. 
They  justify  the  position  and  the  proposals  of  Bright : 

1.  That  it  is  expedient  that  the  House  of  Lords  be 
disabled  by  law  from  rejecting  or  amending  a  Money 
Bill,  but  that  any  such  limitation  by  law  shall  not  be 
taken  to  diminish  or  qualify  the  existing  rights  and 
privileges  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

For  the  purpose  of  this  Resolution  a  Bill  shall  be 
considered  a  Money  Bill  if,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Speaker, 
it  contains  only  provisions  dealing  with  all  or  any  of 
the  following  subjects,  namely,  the  imposition,  repeal, 
remission,  alteration,  or  regulation  of  taxation ;  charges 
on  the  Consolidated  Fund  or  the  provision  of  money 
by  Parliament ;  Supply ;  the  appropriation,  control,  or 
regulation  of  public  money  ;  the  raising  or  guarantee 
of  any  loan  or  the  repayment  thereof ;  or  matters 
incidental  to  those  subjects  or  any  of  them. 

2.  That  it  is  expedient  that  the  powers  of  the  House 
of  Lords,  as  respects  Bills  other  than  Money  Bills,  be 
restricted  by  law,  so  that  any  such  Bill  which  has 
passed  the  House  of  Commons  in  three  successive 
Sessions  and,  having  been  sent  up  to  the  House  of 
Lords  at  least  one  month  before  the  end  of  the  Session, 
has  been  rejected  by  that  House  in  each  of  those 
Sessions,  shall  become  law  without  the  consent  of  the 
House  of  Lords  on  the  Royal  assent  being  declared  : 
Provided  that  at  least  two  years  shall  have  elapsed 
between  the  date  of  the  first  introduction  of  the  Bill 
in  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  date  on  which  it 
passes  the  House  of  Commons  for  the  third  time. 

For  the  purposes  of  this  Resolution  a  Bill  shall  be 

208 


THE  HOUSE  OF  LORDS 

treated  as  rejected  by  the  House  of  Lords  if  it  has  not 
been  passed  by  the  House  of  Lords  either  without 
Amendment  or  with  such  Amendments  only  as  may  be 
agreed  upon  by  both  Houses 

3.  That  it  is  expedient  to  Umit  the  duration  of 
Parliament  to  five  years. 


209 


CHAPTER   XII 

PERSONAL   TRAITS   AND    CHARACTERISTICS 

John  Bright  was,  above  all  things,  a  domestic  man. 
He  loved  home  life.  He  said  of  himself  that  it  was  only 
the  strongest  sense  of  duty  which  induced  him  to  take 
part  in  public  affairs.  He  was  not  ambitious ;  he 
cared  little  for  fame  and  glory.  But  forces  which  he 
could  not  control  impelled  him  to  become  a  great  figure 
in  the  State.  A  love  of  justice  was  born  in  him  ; 
sympathy  with  the  oppressed  was  the  very  essence  of 
his  being ;  and  a  gift  of  oratory,  as  rare  as  was  ever 
bestowed  upon  any  man  of  ancient  or  modern  times, 
was  his  special  endowment.  Morally  and  intellectually 
strong,  he  was  called  to  do  battle  for  the  cause  of 
righteousness,  in  his  own  country  and  in  other  lands, 
and  he  responded  to  the  call.  But  had  he  followed 
the  bent  of  his  own  inclination,  he  would  have  abided 
among  his  own  people,  enjoying  the  companionship 
of  friends,  books,  and  family,  doing  good  wherever 
he  went  by  his  influence  and  example,  but  living 
far  from  the  heat  and  tumult  and  worry  of  political 
strife. 

When  he  was  asked  by  Mr.  Gladstone  to  join  the 
Liberal  Ministry  of  1868  he  at  first  refused,  but  finally 

210 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

yielded  to  the  pressure  of  the  Prime  Minister,  and 
became  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  '  I  got  my 
choice/  he  said,  with  a  touch  of  humour,  to  a  friend, 
'  of  any  office — except  the  War  Office/ 

He  has  himself  told  in  a  speech  of  personal 
interest  how  he  came  to  enter  the  Gladstone  Ministry 
of  1868  : 

Mr.  Gladstone,  soon  after  he  proceeded  to  the 
formation  of  his  administration,  asked  me  to  join  him 
in  the  Government.  I  have  reason  to  know  that  he 
made  that  proposition  with  the  cordial  and  gracious 
acquiescence  of  Her  Majesty  the  Queen.  As  you 
know,  I  had  very  strong  grounds  for  refusing  to  change 
my  seat  and  place  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
arguments  which  were  used  to  induce  me  to  do  so  were 
based  entirely  upon  what  was  considered  best  for  the 
interests  of  the  great  Liberal  Party  and  for  the  public 
service.  I  was  obliged  to  admit,  on  looking  at  those 
arguments  from  such  a  point  of  view,  they  were  not 
easily  to  be  answered.  On  the  other  hand,  I  could  only 
offer  arguments  of  a  private  and  personal  nature, 
though  I  had  believed  them  to  be  unanswerable.  But 
when  the  private  and  the  personal  came  to  be  weighed 
against  the  apparent  public  reasons,  the  private  and 
the  personal  yielded  to  the  public,  and  I  surrendered 
my  inclination,  and  I  may  say  also  my  judgment,  to  the 
opinions  and  to  the  judgment  of  my  friends. 

Mr.  Gladstone  told  me  that  he  did  not  wish  me  to 
accept  any  office  that  was  inferior  in  importance  or  in 
emolument  to  any  held  by  any  one  of  his  colleagues  ; 
and  he  proposed  that  I  should  accept  the  position  of 
Secretary  of  State  for  India.  Now,  very  many  of  my 
friends  have  urged  in  times  past  that  I  should  under- 
take this  office,  and  not  a  few  have  expressed  regret 
that  I  have   not  accepted  it  now.      In   a  sentence, 

211  P2 


■jf^ 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

therefore,  I  think  it  right  to  explain  why  I  took  the 
course  which  led  to  my  declining  such  an  important  post. 
You  know  that  twelve  years  ago,  just  before  I  came 
here,  I  suffered  from  an  entire  breakdown  of  my  health, 
which  cut  me  off  from  public  labours  for  about  two  years. 
The  Indian  Department,  I  believe,  is  one  of  very 
heavy  work,  and  I  felt  I  was  not  justified  in  accepting 
it  unless  there  was  great  probability  of  some  useful 
result  which  could  not  be  accomplished  under  any  other 
chief  of  that  office.  I  still  retain  the  opinion  that  the 
views  which  I  have  expressed  in  times  past — especially 
in  the  year  1858,  when  the  India  Government  Bill  was 
passing  through  Parliament — are  sound,  and  that  the 
time  will  come  when  it  will  be  necessary  to  apply  them 
to  the  government  of  India.  But  I  believe  that  public 
opinion  is  not  sufficiently  advanced  to  allow  us  to  adopt 
them,  and  that  if  I  had  taken  that  office  I  should  have 
found  myself  unable  to  carry  into  effect  the  principles 
which  I  believe  to  be  right  with  regard  to  the  govern- 
ment of  India.  At  the  same  time  I  will  confess  freely 
that  it  did  not  appear  seemly  to  me,  and  that  I  should 
have  been  in  a  wrong  place,  holding  the  views  which  I 
have  held  from  my  youth  upwards,  if  I  had  connected 
myself  distinctly  with  the  conduct  of  the  great  military 
departments  of  the  Indian  Government.  Looking, 
therefore,  at  these  points,  I  felt  it  my  duty  to  decline 
the  proposition  ;  and  I  said  that  if  I  was  to  accept  any 
seat  in  this  Government  I  should  prefer  to  take  the 
office  of  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 

He  added  in  a  beautiful  passage  : 

I  have  not  aspired  at  any  time  of  my  life  to  the 
rank  of  a  Privy  Councillor,  nor  to  the  dignity  of  a 
Cabinet  office.  I  should  have  preferred  much  to  have 
remained  in  that  common  rank  of  simple  citizenship  in 
which  heretofore  I  have  lived.  There  is  a  passage  in 
the  Old  Testament  which  has  often  struck  me  as  being 

212 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

one  of  great  beauty.  Many  of  you  will  recollect  that 
the  prophet,  in  journeying  to  and  fro,  was  very  hospit- 
ably entertained  by  what  is  termed  in  the  Bible  a 
Shunammite  woman.  In  return  for  her  hospitality, 
he  wished  to  make  her  some  amends,  and  he  called  her 
to  him  and  asked  her  what  there  was  he  should  do  for 
her.  *  Shall  I  speak  for  thee  to  the  king,'  he  said,  '  or  to 
the  captain  of  the  host  ?  ' 

Now,  it  has  always  appeared  to  me  that  the  Shunam- 
mite woman  returned  a  great  answer.  She  replied  in 
declining  the  prophet's  offer,  '  I  dwell  among  mine  own 
people.'  When  the  question  was  put  to  me  whether  I 
would  step  into  the  position  in  which  I  now  find 
myself,  the  answer  from  my  heart  was  the  same — I 
wish  to  dwell  among  mine  own  people.  Happily,  the 
time  may  have  come — I  trust  it  has  come — when  in  this 
country  an  honest  man  may  enter  the  service  of  the 
Crown,  and  at  the  same  time  not  feel  it  in  any  degree 
necessary  to  dissociate  himself  from  his  own  people. 
Some  partial  friends  of  mine  have  said  that  I  have 
earned  all  this  by  my  long  services  in  the  popular 
cause.  They  know  not  what  they  say.  They  would 
add  labour  to  labour,  and  would  compensate  a  life  of 
service  by  a  redoubled  responsibility.  I  am  sensible 
of  the  duty  which  is  imposed  upon  me  as  a  Minister  of 
the  Crown.  It  is  my  duty  faithfully  to  perform  that 
which  belongs  to  such  a  position  ;  but  I  have  not  less 
faithfully  to  act  as  becomes  an  honest  representative 
of  the  people.  I  shall  make  the  attempt.  There  are 
many  who  believe  the  attempt  must  fail.  I  hope  that 
it  will  not  fail.  I  will  do  all  that  I  can  to  make  it 
succeed.  And  if  I  should  find  that  the  two  offices  of 
which  I  am  speaking  are  inconsistent  or  discordant,  I 
hope  at  least  that  I  shall  be  able  to  discover  which  of 
them  it  is  right  for  me  to  surrender. 

Of  Bright's  acceptance  of  office,  Lord  Fitzmaurice, 

213 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

in  his  able  and  interesting  '  Life  of  Lord  Granville/ 
says  : 

His  acceptance  of  office  was  perhaps  the  most 
striking  feature  in  the  new  arrangements.  It  was  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  definite  junction 
between  the  more  advanced  section  of  the  old  Liberal 
Party  and  the  Radicalism  of  the  school  of  Mr.  Cobden. 
The  Tadpoles  and  Tapers  of  London  Toryism  went 
about  asserting  that  none  of  the  '  gentlemen  '  of  the 
Liberal  Party  would  associate  with  the  great  tribune 
of  Birmingham,  and  Lord  Derby  was  freely  quoted 
by  them,  though  without  any  kind  of  authority,  as 
having  said  that  the  Queen  would  never  receive  Mr. 
Bright  as  a  Minister.  Lord  Granville  marked  his 
opinion  by  walking  down  Parliament  Street  from  the 
Cabinet,  arm  in  arm  with  the  new  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trade,  to  the  House  on  the  day  of  the  meeting 
of  ParHament,  and  he  piloted  the  new  Minister  on  his 
first  journey  to  Osborne. 

Lord  Granville  gave  an  account  of  this  journey  in  a 
lively  letter  written  to  Mr.  Gladstone  from  Osborne  on 
December  31,  1868  : 

My  dear  Gladstone, — We  took  charge  of  Bright 
at  Waterloo.  He  is  rapidly  becoming  a  very  loose 
character.  He  flirted  violently  with  my  wife  all  the 
way  down,  describing  to  her  his  wife,  his  family,  and 
his  home — reading  verses  to  her,  and  quoting  similar 
passages  in  the  older  poets — denouncing  luncheons, 
and  then  eating  enormously  of  mayonnaise,  and 
drinking  goblets  of  claret,  which  he  declared  was  so 
light  it  must  be  '  Gladstone's.' 

We  had  a  fine  passage,  during  which  he  left  us  to 
ourselves,  and  was  mean  enough,  I  am  much  afraid,  to 

214 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

pump  the  open-hearted  captain  on  the  extravagances 
connected  with  the  royal  yacht.  He  was  much  pleased 
with  the  royal  footman  who  was  waiting  for  us  at  Cowes, 
and  asked  whether  they  were  really  hired  by  the  length. 
All  went  well  till  our  entry  at  Osborne.  He  was  really 
angry  with  the  footman  at  the  door  for  transferring  his 
carpet-bag  to  a  man  in  an  apron.  In  vain  we  pleaded 
the  division  of  labour,  the  necessity  of  the  former  pre- 
serving his  red  coat  and  his  white  stockings  from  the 
dirt  of  luggage. 

'  If  I  had  known  the  fellow  was  too  fine  to  take  it, 
I  would  have  carried  it  myself.'     He  stayed  in  Lady 

Granville's  sitting-room  till  past  dressing  time. 

came  in.  Nothing  could  be  more  striking  than  the  con- 
trast between  the  two  men.  Both  a  little  vain,  and  with 
good  reason  to  be  so  ;  but  one  so  guileless  in  his 
allusions  to  himself,  and  the  other  showing  it  enveloped 
with  little  artifices  and  mock  humility  ;  one  so  intrinsi- 
cally a  gentleman,  and  so  ignorant  of  our  particular 
society,  the  other  a  little  vulgar,  but  a  consummate 
master  of  the  ways  of  the  grand  monde.  The  combined 
influences  of  Bright's  connexion  with  the  Press,  the 
platform,  and  the  House  of  Commons,  together  with 
the  great  simplicity  in  which  this  combative  and  able 
man  was  brought  up,  and  which  he  has  maintained  in 
his  social  and  family  habits,  gave  his  conversation  a 
singular  flavour. 

He  told  us  he  only  informed  his  wife  two  days  ago 
of  his  visit  here,  and  of  her  almost  reproachful  answer — 
'  It  seems  strange  you  should  be  going  where  I  cannot 
follow.' 

I  called  for  him  at  dinner  time;  his  dress  was 
irreproachable,  after  he  had  readily  agreed  to  take  off 
a  pair  of  bridal  white  gloves.  He  was  rather  pleased, 
quoted  his  tailor's  approval  of  tights,  and  acknow- 
ledged he  had  promised  to  rehearse  the  costume  before 
his  wife  and  daughter.     The  beginning  of  dinner  was 

215 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

awful — the  Queen  with  a  sick  headache  and  shy  ; 
Princess  Louise  whispering  uninteUigibly  in  my  ear, 
and  Lady  Qifden  shouting  ineffectually  into  the  still 
more  impenetrable  receptacle  of  sound  belonging  to 
Charles  Grey;  Bright  like  a  war-horse  champing  his 
bit,  and  dying  to  be  at  them.  At  last  an  allusion  to 
children  enabled  me  to  tell  Bright  to  repeat  to  Her 
Majesty  his  brother's  observation  '  where,  considering 
what  charming  things  children  were,  all  the  queer  old 
men  came  from.'  This  amused  the  Queen,  and  all 
went  on  merrily.  She  talked  to  him  for  a  long  time, 
and  the  old  roue  evidently  touched  some  feminine 
chord,  for  she  was  much  touched  with  him,  and  saw 
him  again  the  next  morning. 

Without  unnecessary  depreciation  of  our  enemies, 
it  is  probable  that  she  is  not  insensible  to  the  charm  of 
sincerity  and  earnestness. 

We  then  retired  to  the  Household  at  tea,  and  Bright 
was  by  no  means  dashed  when  Alfred  Paget  addressed 
the  company  as  if  through  a  speaking  trumpet,  '  Well, 
I  never  expected  to  see  John  Bright  here,  winning  his 
money  at  Blind  Hookey.' — Yours,  G. 

Of  Bright  at  the  Board  of  Trade  Lord  Eversley  (who, 
as  Mr.  Shaw  Lefevre,  was  Secretary  to  the  Board  when 
Bright  was  President)  writes  : 

I  have  always  looked  back  at  my  association  in 
1869-70  with  Mr.  Bright  at  the  Board  of  Trade,  when 
he  was  President  and  I  was  Parliamentary  Secretary, 
with  the  greatest  pleasure,  and  with  a  strong  personal 
affection  for  him.  He  told  me  when  we  first  met  at 
the  office  that  I  must  do  most  of  the  work,  and  only 
bring  before  him  the  more  important  questions.  He 
had  no  experience  of  official  work,  and  I  gathered  that 
he  had  not  taken  much  part  in  the  business  of  the  manu- 
facturing firm  of  which  he  was  a  partner.     At  the  age 

216 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

of  fifty-seven  it  was  rather  late  in  life  to  begin  work  at 
the  head  of  a  great  Government  department.  He  had 
a  great  distaste,  and  almost  an  incapacity,  for  wading 
through  a  bundle  of  official  papers.  It  was  said  in  the 
office  that  he  did  not  know  how  to  untie  the  tape  which 
held  them  together.  I  don't  think  he  often  did  this. 
I  don't  recollect  his  ever  writing  a  minute  on  them. 
He  liked  me  to  state  the  case  to  him,  and  he  would 
then  discuss  it  fully  and  with  practical  common-sense. 
What  he  said  was  always  of  the  greatest  value,  and 
his  conclusions  were  sound  and  wise.  Sometimes, 
however,  before  deciding  he  would  go  down  to  the 
House  of  Commons  and  discuss  the  matter  with  some 
friend  in  the  smoking-room  there,  and  it  was  difficult 
then  to  meet  the  arguments  or  objections  of  this 
unknown  person. 

I  recollect  that  in  the  very  first  case  Mr.  Bright 
had  to  deal  with  at  the  Board  of  Trade,  a  deputation 
came  before  him  from  the  Elder  Brethren  of  the 
Trinity  House,  asking  for  some  amendment  of  their 
charter.  Mr.  Bright  asked  me,  before  receiving  them, 
what  I  knew  about  them.  I  told  him  that  they  were 
an  old  corporation  in  whom,  from  time  immemorial, 
the  administration  of  the  lighthouses  had  been  vested, 
subject  of  recent  years  to  control  over  their  expendi- 
ture by  the  Board  of  Trade ;  no  one,  I  said,  would 
think  of  creating  such  a  body  nowadays,  but  that,  as 
they  did  their  work  fairly  well,  there  was  no  present 
reason  for  disestablishing  them.  In  the  course  of  his 
reply  to  the  deputation  Mr.  Bright,  pointing  to  me,  said, 
'  You  see  that  Radical  chap  there ;  he  would  sweep  you 
into  the  sea  if  he  could.'  He  then  presented  himself  to 
them  as  the  more  conservative  statesman,  and  ended 
by  conceding  what  they  wanted.  It  amused  me 
much  to  be  called  a  '  Radical  chap  '  by  Mr.  Bright, 
as  compared  with  himself  ;  but  there  was  a  certain 
amount  of  truth  in  the  comparison,  for  in  details  of 

217 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

administration  and  in  proposals  for  legislation  Mr. 
Bright  was  distinctly  conservative,  far  more  so  than  I 
was.  He  objected  to  interference  or  to  legislation  if  it 
could  possibly  be  avoided.  He  got  into  trouble  with  the 
Press  for  a  speech  he  made  in  the  House  of  Commons 
objecting  to  a  Bill  which  aimed  at  giving  greater 
protection  against  adulteration. 

Mr.  Bright  was  an  exceedingly  pleasant  chief  to 
work  under,  showing  the  fullest  confidence  and  con- 
sideration. He  not  unfrequently  deferred  to  my  views, 
even  when  disagreeing  with  them.  In  one  important 
question,  where  the  Board  of  Trade  had  been  asked  by 
the  Foreign  Office  for  an  opinion  as  to  the  instructions  to 
be  given  to  our  Minister  in  Pekin  on  a  negotiation  for  a 
commercial  treaty,  after  discussing  the  matter  with  me, 
Mr.  Bright  said, '  Well,  you  have  given  great  attention 
to  the  subject  and  I  very  little,  so  the  letter  had 
better  go  to  the  Foreign  Office  as  you  propose,  though 
I  quite  disagree.'     And  so  it  went. 

Later  Lord  Clarendon,  who  was  then  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, sent  for  me  to  discuss  the  same  question  with  him. 
Curiously  enough  he  ended  the  discussion  almost  in  the 
same  words  as  Mr.  Bright  had  done,  and  instructions 
were  sent  to  the  Minister  in  China  in  the  terms  I  pro- 
posed, though  both  Mr.  Bright  and  Lord  Clarendon 
disagreed.  I  should  add  that  my  opinion  had 
been  formed  after  consultation  with  Lord  Farrer 
and  Sir  Lewis  Malet,  then  officials  at  the  Board  of 
Trade. 

Mr.  Bright  struck  me  as  a  very  good  judge  of  men. 
The  only  important  post  at  the  Board  of  Trade  which 
fell  vacant  while  he  was  in  office  there  was  that  of  the 
head  of  the  Railway  Department.  There  were  a  great 
many  applicants  for  it.  Mr.  Bright  took  much  trouble 
in  personally  seeing  many  of  them.  He  picked  out 
from  them  a  young  lawyer,  Mr.  William  Malcolm,  who 
came  of  a  well-known  Tory  stock.      The  appointment 

218 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

turned  out  a  most  excellent  one  in  every  respect. 
After  some  years  of  work  at  the  Board  of 
Trade  Mr.  Malcolm  was  transferred  to  the  Colonial 
Office,  and  later  was  tempted  to  leave  the  Govern- 
ment service  by  an  offer  of  partnership  in  Messrs. 
Coutts'  Bank. 

Mr.  Bright  often  discussed  Mr.  Gladstone  with  me. 
He  had  the  most  profound  admiration  for  his  chief, 
and  was  astounded  at  his  power  of  work.  He 
could  not  have  believed  it  was  possible  for  any  human 
being  to  get  through  so  much.  He  said  that  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  a  passion  for  work,  and  revelled  in  it 
for  its  own  sake.  Of  himself,  he  said  that  he  had  no 
such  power  or  liking  for  work.  The  only  pleasant  thing 
about  office,  he  humorously  added,  was  receiving  the 
salary.  He  gave  great  support  to  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the 
Cabinet.  I  feel  certain  that  Mr.  Gladstone  had  the 
greatest  confidence  in  him,  and  appreciated  his  sound 
counsel.  When  Mr.  Bright,  in  Mr.  Gladstone's  second 
administration,  resigned  his  post  on  account  of  the 
military  operations  in  Egypt,  from  something  he  said 
to  me  I  thought  he  was  rather  hurt  to  find  how  little 
disturbed  Mr.  Gladstone  was  at  losing  him  for  a 
colleague.  I  made  the  observation  that  resignations 
of  colleagues  were  to  Mr.  Gladstone  a  part  of  his 
everyday  work. 

I  was  confirmed  in  this  view  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
later,  in  1884,  when  I  was  a  member  of  his  Cabinet. 
The  period  was  one  of  great  internal  differences  in 
the  Government,  and  at  several  successive  Cabinets 
resignations  were  tendered,  and  were  only  with- 
drawn after  great  difficulties.  Mr.  Gladstone  dealt  with 
these  cases  with  imperturbable  temper  and  calmness, 
as  part  of  the  business  of  the  day.  I  recollect  that 
in  coming  out  of  a  Cabinet,  after  one  of  these  scenes, 
he  made  the  jocular  observation  to  me  that  *  his 
colleagues  seemed  to  be  all  going  off  at  half-cock.' 

219 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Mr.  Bright  spent  much  labour  in  preparing  his 
speeches.  His  speech,  in  1869,  on  the  Bill  for  disestab- 
lishing the  Irish  Church  was  one  of  the  best  he  ever 
made.  It  was  the  subject  of  long  thought  and  pre- 
paration. His  great  efforts  were  perhaps  conceived  in 
a  loftier  strain  than  Mr.  Gladstone's,  but  he  did  not 
compare  in  general  effectiveness — in  power  of  debate — 
in  all  the  use  of  rhetorical  and  dialectical  methods. 
His  impromptu  speeches  were  rare,  but  they  were  not 
wanting  in  spirit  and  power.  He  gave  much  time  to 
reading  poetry.  He  often  copied  out  lines  which 
pleased  him,  and  carried  them  about  in  his  pocket  for 
the  purpose  of  committing  them  to  memory.  I  thought 
his  massive  head  a  very  noble  one  and  his  expression 
refined  and  beautiful — totally  different  from  the  version 
given  of  him  in  Punch,  which  always  depicted  him  as  a 
coarse  and  almost  brutal  demagogue.  It  was  in  this  sense 
he  was  regarded  for  many  years  by  the  Tory  Party. 
It  was  only  quite  late  in  his  life  in  the  House  of  Commons 
that  the  impression  changed,  and  that  even  his  op- 
ponents recognised  his  noble  simplicity  and  refinement. 

Mr.  Bright's  work  at  the  Board  of  Trade  was 
practically  confined  to  one  year.  During  the  whole  of 
the  second  year  he  was  incapacitated  by  illness,  but  he 
retained  office  at  the  urgent  entreaties  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  his  colleagues,  and  against  his  own  wishes.  He 
recovered  his  health  eventually,  and  was  again  a  member 
of  Mr.  Gladstone's  second  administration  as  Chancellor 
of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster,  which  did  not  entail  any 
office  work.  It  was  a  great  grief  to  me,  as  to  so 
many  of  his  old  colleagues,  when  Mr.  Bright  separated 
himself  from  Mr.  Gladstone  and  the  bulk  of  the  Liberal 
Party  on  the  subject  of  Home  Rule  for  Ireland.  But 
this  difference  made  no  change  in  our  personal  relations, 
as  it  did  in  so  many  other  cases.  I  was  among  those 
present  at  his  funeral,  and  no  one  mourned  him  more 
than  I  did. 

220 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

Bright  loved  peace.  He  hated  war.  But  in  dealing 
with  the  subject  of  war  he  did  not,  as  I  have  already 
said,  discuss  it  on  the  principles  of  the  Peace  Society. 
He  discussed  it  on  the  principles  of  statesmanship.  His 
most  remarkable  utterance  on  the  subject  was,  I  think, 
a  speech  delivered  at  Birmingham  in  1858.  He  said 
that  people  spoke  as  if  the  principles  which  he 
enunciated,  on  the  question  of  peace  and  war,  were 
something  new,  and  peculiar  to  himself.  But  that  was 
not  so.  Some  of  the  greatest  English  statesmen  of  the 
past  had  enunciated  the  same  principles — Walpole, 
Fox,  Grey,  Peel.  The  policy  of  English  interference 
in  foreign  affairs  had  really  begun  in  the  wars  of  the 
Revolution.     He  said : 

If  you  turn  to  the  history  of  England,  from  the 
period  of  the  Revolution  to  the  present,  you  will  find 
that  an  entirely  new  policy  was  adopted,  and  that, 
while  we  had  endeavoured  in  former  times  to  keep  our- 
selves free  from  European  complications,  we  now 
began  to  act  upon  a  system  of  constant  entanglement 
in  the  affairs  of  foreign  countries,  as  if  there  was  neither 
property  nor  honours,  nor  anything  worth  striving  for, 
to  be  acquired  in  any  other  field.  The  language  coined 
and  used  then  has  continued  to  our  day.  Lord  Somers, 
in  writing  for  William  HI,  speaks  of  the  endless  and 
sanguinary  wars  of  that  period  as  wars  '  to  maintain 
the  liberties  of  Europe.'  There  were  wars  *  to  support 
the  Protestant  interest,'  and  there  were  many  wars  to 
preserve  our  old  friend  '  the  balance  of  power.' 

We  have  been  at  war  since  that  time,  I  believe,  with, 
for,  and  against  every  considerable  nation  in  Europe. 
We  fought  to  put  down  a  pretended  French  supremacy 
under  Louis  XIV.  We  fought  to  prevent  France  and 
Spain   coming   under   the   sceptre   of   one   monarch, 

221 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

although,  if  we  had  not  fought,  it  would  have  been  im- 
possible in  the  course  of  things  that  they  should  have 
become  so  united.  We  fought  to  maintain  the  Italian 
provinces  in  connexion  with  the  House  of  Austria. 
We  fought  to  put  down  the  supremacy  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  ;  and  the  Minister  who  was  employed  by 
this  country  at  Vienna,  after  the  great  war,  when  it  was 
determined  that  no  Bonaparte  should  ever  again  sit  on 
the  throne  of  France,  was  the  very  man  to  make  an 
alliance  with  another  Bonaparte  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  on  a  war  to  prevent  the  supremacy  of  the  late 
Emperor  of  Russia.  So  that  we  have  been  all  round 
Europe,  and  across  it  over  and  over  again,  and  after  a 
policy  so  distinguished,  so  pre-eminent,  so  long  con- 
tinued, and  so  costly,  I  think  we  have  a  fair  right — 
I  have,  at  least — to  ask  those  who  are  in  favour  of  it  to 
show  us  its  visible  result. 

The  industry  of  the  people  was  taxed,  domestic  re- 
form checked,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  country  retarded 
by  these  wars.  Treasure  was  squandered  and  blood 
shed  without  anything  being  gained  for  the  advance- 
ment of  human  well-being  and  happiness. 

I  believe  that  I  understate  the  sum  when  I  say 
that,  in  pursuit  of  this  will-o'-the-wisp  (the  liberties  of 
Europe  and  the  balance  of  power),  there  has  been  ex- 
tracted from  the  industry  of  the  people  of  this  small 
island  no  less  an  amount  than  ;jf2,ooo,ooo,ooo  sterling. 
I  cannot  imagine  how  much  £2,000,000,000  is,  and  there- 
fore I  shall  not  attempt  to  make  you  comprehend  it. 
I  presume  it  is  something  like  those  vast  and  incom- 
prehensible astronomical  distances  with  which  we  have 
been  lately  made  familiar  ;  but,  however  familiar,  we 
feel  that  we  do  not  know  one  bit  more  about  them  than 
we  did  before.  When  I  try  to  think  of  that  sum  of 
;f2,ooo,ooo,ooo,  there  is  a  sort  of  vision  passes  before 

222  _ 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

my  mind^s  eye.  I  see  your  peasant  labourer  delve  and 
plough,  sow  and  reap,  sweat  beneath  the  summer's 
sun,  or  grow  prematurely  old  before  the  winter's  blast. 
I  see  your  noble  mechanic,  with  his  manly  countenance 
and  his  matchless  skill,  toiling  at  his  bench  or  his  forge. 
I  see  one  of  the  workers  in  our  factories  in  the  north,  a 
woman — a  girl,  it  may  be — gentle  and  good,  as  many 
of  them  are,  as  your  sisters  and  daughters  are — I  see 
her  intent  upon  the  spindle,  whose  revolutions  are  so 
rapid  that  the  eye  fails  altogether  to  detect  them,  or 
watching  the  alternating  flight  of  the  unresting  shuttle. 
I  turn  again  to  another  portion  of  your  population, 
which,  '  plunged  in  mines,  forgets  a  sun  was  made,'  and 
I  see  the  man  who  brings  up  from  the  secret  chambers  of 
the  earth  the  elements  of  the  riches  and  greatness  of  his 
country.  When  I  see  all  this  I  have  before  me  a  mass 
of  produce  and  of  wealth  which  I  am  no  more  able  to 
comprehend  than  I  am  that  ;£2, 000,000,000  of  which  I 
have  spoken,  but  I  behold  in  its  full  proportions  the 
hideous  error  of  your  Governments,  whose  fatal  policy 
consumes  in  some  cases  a  half,  never  less  than  a  third, 
of  all  the  results  of  that  industry  which  God  intended 
should  fertilise  and  bless  every  home  in  England,  but 
the  fruits  of  which  are  squandered  in  every  part  of  the 
surface  of  the  globe,  without  producing  the  smallest 
good  to  the  people  of  England. 

But  somebody  gained  by  this  policy  of  intervention 
and  war.  Who  gained  ?  Bright  answered  this  question 
in  a  well-remembered  passage  : 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  did  nobody  gain  ?  If  Europe 
is  no  better,  and  the  people  of  England  have  been  so 
much  worse,  who  has  benefited  by  the  new  system  of 
foreign  policy  ?  What  has  been  the  fate  of  those  who 
were  enthroned  at  the  Revolution,  and  whose  supre- 
macy has  been  for  so  long  a  period  undisputed  among 

223 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

US  ?  Mr.  Kinglake,  the  author  of  an  interesting  book 
on  Eastern  travel,  describing  the  habits  of  some 
acquaintances  that  he  made  in  the  Syrian  deserts,  says 
that  the  jackals  of  the  desert  follow  their  prey  in 
families  like  the  place-hunters  of  Europe.  I  will 
reverse,  if  you  like,  the  comparison,  and  say  that  the 
great  territorial  families  of  England,  which  were  en- 
throned at  the  Revolution,  have  followed  their  prey 
like  the  jackals  of  the  desert.  Do  you  not  observe  at  a 
glance  that  from  the  time  of  William  III,  by  reason  of 
the  foreign  policy  which  I  denounce,  wars  have  been 
multiplied,  taxes  increased,  loans  made,  and  the  sums 
of  money  which  every  year  the  Government  has  to 
expend  augmented ;  and  that  so  the  patronage  at  the 
disposal  of  Ministers  must  have  increased  also,  and  the 
families  who  were  enthroned  and  made  powerful  in  the 
legislation  and  administration  of  the  country  must  have 
had  the  first  pull  at,  and  the  largest  profit  out  of,  that 
patronage  ?  There  is  no  actuary  in  existence  who  can 
calculate  how  much  of  the  wealth,  of  the  strength,  of 
the  supremacy  of  the  territorial  families  of  England  has 
been  derived  from  an  unholy  participation  in  the 
fruits  of  the  industry  of  the  people,  which  have  been 
wrested  from  them  by  every  device  of  taxation  and 
squandered  in  every  conceivable  crime  of  which  a 
Government  could  possibly  be  guilty. 

The  more  you  examine  this  mxatter  the  more  you  will 
come  to  the  conclusion  which  I  have  airived  at — that 
this  foreign  policy,  this  regard  for  *  the  liberties  of 
Europe,'  this  care  at  one  time  for  '  the  Protestant 
interests,'  this  excessive  love  for  '  the  balance  of  power,' 
is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  gigantic  system  of  out- 
door relief  for  the  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain. 

Bright  condemned  the  view  that  war  made  trade. 
War  made  debt,  and  the  weight  of  the  debt  often 
counterbalanced  the  profits  of  the  trade.     Peace  was 

224 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

the  only  sure  foundation  upon  which  a  prosperous 
and  a  Christian  State  could  be  built.  That  was  his 
creed. 

Bright  was  often  attacked  for  his  opposition  to  the 
Factory  Acts.  He  has  disposed  of  the  subject  in  the 
following  pithy  letter,  addressed  to  a  gentleman  who 
had  called  his  attention  to  some  criticisms  of  a  Tory 
newspaper : 

One  Ash,  Rochdale  :  January  i,  1884. 

Dear  Sir, — I  was  opposed  to  all  legislation  restrict- 
ing the  adults,  men  or  women.  I  was  in  favour  of  legisla- 
tion restricting  the  labour  and  guarding  the  health  of 
children.  I  could  not  therefore  support  Bills  which 
directly  interfered  with  and  restricted  the  working 
hours  of  women,  and  which  thus  were  intended  to  limit 
the  working  hours  of  men.  I  still  hold  the  opinion  that 
to  limit  by  law  the  time  during  which  adults  may  work 
is  unwise,  and  in  many  cases  oppressive.  As  to  your 
Tory  newspaper,  you  may  remind  the  writer  that  I 
sought  to  give  the  workman  two  loaves  of  bread  when 
his  party  wished  to  give  him  only  one. 

I  am,  truly  yours, 

John  Bright. 

Bright  was  very  courteous  in  answering  letters,  no 
matter  by  whom  they  were  written,  and  very  willing 
to  give  information  and  help  in  reference  to  subjects  in 
which  he  was  interested,  whenever  his  assistance  was 
sought.  A  boy  at  Eton  once  wrote  to  him  to  seek  his 
aid  in  discussing  the  question  '  Whether  England  ought 
to  interfere  with  the  politics  of  the  Continent  ?  '  The 
boy — now  a  man.  Major  Clive  Morrison  Bell — himself 

225  Q 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

tells  the  story  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Mr.  Reginald 
Smith : 

Harpford  House,  Ottery  St.  Mary, 
Devonshire  :   Dec.  i6,  1909. 

Dear  Mr.  Smith, — Here  is  the  letter  at  last.  The 
facts  are  as  follows  : 

I  had  just  been  elected  to  my  House  Debating 
Society,  and  was  faced  with  the  curiously  worded 
conundrum,  '  Whether  England  ought  to  interfere  with 
the  politics  of  the  Continent  ?  '  on  which  I  was  told  I 
was  expected  to  make  my  maiden  effort.  In  despair  I 
wrote  to  my  father,  and  asked  him  what  I  was  to  say. 

In  view  of  the  very  guarded  reply  from  one  of  the 
foremost  statesmen  of  that  day  (which  I  enclose)  I 
think  my  father  showed  commendable  discretion  in 
answering  in  a  way  that  would  nowadays  be  described 
that  '  he  wasn't  taking  any.' 

He,  however,  advised  me  to  write  to  Mr.  John 
Bright  and  try  to  enlist  his  sympathies  in  elucidating 
the  problem. 

This  I  accordingly  must  have  done,  as  some  time 
after  the  debate  I  received  the  enclosed  letter  written 
from  the  Reform  Club,  and  I  doubt  if  I  ever  appre- 
ciated (though  as  a  Parliamentary  candidate  I  do 
now)  what  a  lot  of  trouble  I  must  have  given  him,  and 
how  kind  it  was  of  him  to  reply. 

I  wish  I  had  a  verbatim  account  of  what  I  actually 
said  at  the  subsequent  debate;  it  must  have  been 
funny. 

Yours  very  truly, 

Clive  Morrison  Bell. 

Bright's  letter  runs  as  follows  : 

Reform  Club,  Pall  Mall,  S.W. :  March  14,  '87. 

[Private.l 

Dear  Sir, — I  am  sorry  I  have  not  replied  to  your 

226 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

letter  before  this,  and  now  it  is  too  late.  But  in  truth 
I  could  not  have  given  you  any  information — facts  or 
arguments — to  assist  you.  The  question  is  one  which 
requires  study  and  thought,  and  some  knowledge  of 
our  history  and  of  foreign  policy  from  the  days  of 
William  the  3rd  to  our  own  day. 

But  if  you  understand  the  grounds  of  the  wars  for 
200  years  back,  you  will  discover  how  little  of  common- 
sense  and  common  morality  there  has  been  in  them ; 
and  if  you  can  ascertain  in  any  degree,  or  even  imagine, 
what  they  cost  our  people  in  treasure  and  in  blood,  you 
will  see  how  much  we  have  paid  and  how  little  we  have 
gained. 

I  am  sorry  I  know  no  book  which  discusses  this 
question  fairly,  but  any  good  History  will  furnish  you 
with  information  which  will  enable  you  to  form  a  judg- 
ment upon  it. 

There  must  surely  be  something  in  the  morality  or 
immorality  of  nations  as  well  as  of  individuals,  and  we 
are  paying  dearly  for  the  crimes  of  our  fathers  and  for 
our  own,  for  we  have  committed  very  many  during  the 
reign  of  the  Queen. 

I  am,  very  truly  yours, 

John  Bright. 

Mr.  Clive  Bell, 

Eton  College,  Windsor. 

Bright  took  a  keen  interest  in  the  Tichbome  case. 
Why  ?  it  may  be  asked.  Why  should  he  have  bothered 
himself  about  a  matter  of  such  little  public  importance  ? 
The  answer  is  easy.  He  believed  that  the  claimant  was 
an  impostor,  striving  to  do  a  great  wrong  by  plundering 
an  ancient  family  of  its  inheritance.  His  sense  of 
justice  was  awakened,  and  he  endeavoured,  so  far 
as  in  him  lay,  to  prevent  people  from  being  led 
astray. 

227  '  Q  2 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

While  the  case  was  proceeding,  Mrs.  Bright  once  said 
to  some  friends  who  had  called  at  One  Ash,  '  Do  not 
mention  the  Tichborne  case,  for  if  you  do,  he  will  not 
talk  upon  any  other  subject/  Lord  Bowen  (who  was 
junior  counsel  for  the  Crown  in  the  case)  once  told  me 
that  the  most  convincing  speech  made  against  the 
claimant  was  deHvered  by  Bright  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  Dr.  Kenealy  (then  a  member  of  the  House) 
had  given  notice  of  a  motion  censuring  the  judges  in 
connexion  with  the  subject.  Bright  saw  Bowen  and 
practically  asked  the  distinguished  lawyer  to  coach 
him,  which  Bowen  did  with  much  zest.  Bright  went 
thoroughly  into  the  case,  and  soon  astonished  Bowen 
by  his  quick  and  perfect  mastery  of  it.  On  April  23, 
1875,  he  addressed  the  House  of  Commons  in  a  speech 
which  produced  a  great  effect  both  in  the  House  and 
in  the  country.  Persons  frequently  wrote  to  Bright  to 
ask  his  opinion  of  the  case,  and  he  always  readily 
answered  their  queries.  In  July  1875,  when  the 
claimant  was  undergoing  his  sentence  at  Dartmoor, 
Bright  wrote  the  following  letter  to  Mr.  Mark  Harrison, 
of  Sheffield  : 

London,  132  Piccadilly  :  July  16,  '75. 

Sir, — You  may  rely  upon  it  that  Arthur  Orton 
will  not  come  from  New  Zealand.  During  the  trials 
£1000  was  offered  for  him,  and  nobody  could  produce 
him.  It  was  a  large  bribe,  and  I  only  wonder  it  did  not 
bring  over  a  score  of  Ortons.  The  Arthur  Orton  is  at 
Dartmoor,  and  nobody,  I  suspect,  knows  this  better 
than  some  of  those  who  are  pretending  to  expect  him 
from  New  Zealand. 

I  have  read  all  the  evidence  and  all  the  speeches 
of  both  trials,  and  the  summing-up  of  the  Lord  Chief 

228 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

Justice — this  last  I  have  read  again  during  the  last 
month — and  I  have  read  more  than  once  the  evidence 
given  before  the  Chili  Commission.  I  know  therefore 
as  much  about  the  matter  as  you  can  know,  and  much 
more  than  is  known  by  nine  out  of  ten  of  those 
who  are  clamouring  for  the  release  of  the  convict  at 
Dartmoor. 

I  have  before  me  now  the  handwriting  of  the  real 
Roger  Tichborne,  of  the  real  Arthur  Orton,  and  of  the 
convict,  and  this  alone  is  sufficient  to  convince  any 
man  of  common-sense  and  observation  what  is  the 
truth  in  the  case.  If  you  could  see  this  handwriting, 
and  if  you  could  examine  the  evidence  of  the  Chili 
Commission — the  evidence  of  the  convict's  own  friends 
to  whom  he  referred  for  proof  that  he  was  what  he 
pretended  to  be — you  could  hardly  fail  to  be  convinced 
that  your  belief  in  the  convict  is  wrong  and  your 
sympathy  with  him  wholly  misplaced.  I  mention 
these  two  points  as  conclusive  against  him  ;  there  are 
many  other  points  in  the  evidence  on  the  trials  which 
are  fatal  to  his  claims. 

He  seemed  to  know  the  names  of  two  dogs,  but  he 
did  not  know  the  name  of  his  own  mother.  Mr.  Turville, 
in  Australia,  asked  him  a  test  question — whether  his 
mother  was  stout  or  thin.  He  said,  '  Stout — a  tall, 
large  woman.'  It  is  not  denied  that  Lady  Tichborne 
was  leanness  itself.  Miss  Nangle  said  she  was  more 
like  a  skeleton  than  anything  else,  and  this  was  not 
contradicted  by  anyone. 

If  you  can  believe  in  a  man  who  did  not  know  his 
own  mother's  name,  and  who  said  that  his  mother, 
who  is  admitted  to  have  been  leanness  itself,  was  *  stout 
— a  tall,  large  woman  '  when  he  first  came  forward  in 
Australia,  and  when  he  had  had  no  opportunity  of 
picking  up  information  and  facts  to  support  his  case,  I 
fear  you  are  of  that  credulous  nature  that  it  must  be 
useless  to  reason  with  you. 

229 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

I  can  take  no  part  in  the  proceedings  of  Mr. 
Whalley  and  his  friends.  To  me  the  convict  in 
Dartmoor  is  the  greatest  criminal  that  has  appeared 
in  our  time  ;  his  crime  has  extended  over  many  years  ; 
it  is  most  base  in  character,  and  included  in  it 
almost  every  crime  for  which  evil  men  are  brought  to 
punishment. 

You  are  much  impressed,  I  dare  say,  by  the 
declarations  of  those  who  traverse  the  country  creating 
agitation  on  this  question.  I  must  ask  to  be  permitted 
to  value  my  own  judgment  at  least  as  highly  as  that  of 
these  persons.  One  of  them  has  invested  money  largely 
in  the  case,  and  pecuniary  interest  is  not  favourable 
to  an  impartial  decision  ;  another  suffers  from  a  com- 
plaint which  I  call  '  Jesuit  on  the  Brain,'  and  this 
seems  grievously  to  distort  almost  everything  he  looks 
at ;  and  the  third  is  the  lawyer  who  failed,  after  a  trial 
lasting  1 88  days,  to  convince  three  judges  and  twelve 
jurymen,  or  any  one  of  the  judges  or  of  the  jurymen, 
that  his  client  was  anything  but  an  impostor, 
and  a  man  most  odious  from  his  character  and  his 
crimes. 

I  shall  be  glad  therefore  if  you,  and  such  as  believe 
with  you,  will  not  ask  me  to  correspond  further  on  a 
question  about  which  only  honest  men  who  are  in 
entire  ignorance  of  the  facts  can,  in  my  view,  differ  in 
opinion. 

I  am,  yours  truly, 
^  John  Bright. 

I  do  not  know  if  Bright  would  be  considered  a 
good  letter-writer.  He  certainly  does  not  reveal  him- 
self in  his  letters  as  he  does  in  his  speeches,  yet  in  the 
following  letter,  addressed  to  Lord  Charles  Russell,  we 
get  an  insight  into  the  tenderness,  sincerity,  and  deep 
sympathy  with  sorrow  and  affliction  of  which  he  was 

230 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

capable.  Lord  Charles  and  Bright  were  good  friends, 
each  holding  the  other  in  high  esteem.  Lord  Charles's 
daughter  had  been  married  in  1876,  and  Bright  was  one 
of  the  guests  at  the  wedding.  Within  a  twelvemonth 
of  the  wedding  the  bride  died  in  her  first  confinement. 
Bright  wrote  : 

132  Piccadilly  :   March  19,  '77. 

Dear  Lord  Charles  Russell, — I  thank  you  for 
sending  me  the  story  of  that  sad  day. 

I  was  on  the  Continent  when  I  saw  the  announce- 
ment of  your  loss  in  the  Times.  I  was  shocked,  and  I 
pictured  to  myself  your  sorrow  and  that  of  your  circle, 
and  in  some  measure  I  joined  in  it.  I  seem  never 
able  to  dissociate  fear  from  weddings.  I  have  lost  two 
sisters  soon  after  marriage — one  on  the  birth  of  her  first, 
and  the  other  on  the  birth  of  her  second  child:  the 
succeeding  fever  was  the  cause  of  death.  These  events 
so  affected  me  that  I  never  attend  a  wedding  ceremony 
without  a  feeling  of  doubt  and  sadness. 

Believe  me,  I  sympathise  deeply  with  you  in  your 
affliction  and  hope  that  you  have  in  it  such  consolation 
as  the  case  admits  of. 

I  am  always. 

Most  sincerely  yours, 

John  Bright. 

A  gentleman  once  wrote  to  Bright  asking  him  if  he 
would  accept  the  office  of  first  President  of  the  English 
Republic.  There  is  a  quaint  touch  of  humour  in  the 
reply : 

Rochdale  :  April  7,  1872. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  Republican  friend  must  not  be 
a  very  desperate  character  if  he  proposes  to  make  me 
first  President,  though  I  doubt  if  he  can  be  a  friend  of 

231 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

mine.  As  to  opinions  on  the  question  of  Monarchy  or 
RepubUcanism,  I  hope  and  beheve  it  will  be  a  long  time 
before  we  are  asked  to  give  our  opinion  ;  our  ancestors 
decided  the  matter  a  good  while  since,  and  I  would 
suggest  that  you  and  I  should  leave  any  further  decision 
to  our  posterity.  Now,  from  your  letter  I  conclude  you 
are  willing  to  do  this  ;  and  I  can  assure  you  I  am  not 
less  willing. 

Bright  was  intimately  acquainted  with  Mr.  Charles 
Tennant,  and  used  often  to  drop  in  to  see  him  at 
his  residence  in  Richmond  Terrace,  Whitehall.  Mr. 
Tennant' s  daughter,  afterwards  Lady  Stanley,  has 
pleasant  recollections  of  the  great  orator  and  states- 
man.    She  says : 

My  father  and  John  Bright  were  great  friends,  and 

Mr.  Bright  called  constantly  to  see  us  throughout  his 

life.     I  used  to  love  to  look  at  him  and  to  hear  him 

talk.     Of  course  I  did  not  understand  what  he  said,  but 

his  voice  and  manner  and  face  and  everything  about  him 

had  a  fascination  for  me — I  was  simply  in  love  with  him. 

I  remember  one  thing  that  happened  when  I  was  quite  a 

little  girl  about  eight  or  ten.    I  knew  that  Mr.  Bright  was 

coming  to  see  my  father,  and  I  thought  that  my  father 

would  not  allow  me  to  remain  in  the  room  to  hear  them 

talk,  so  I  determined  to  get  under  the  sofa,  and  so 

listen  to  Mr.  Bright.     Well,  they  both  sat  on  the  sofa, 

and  after  a  time  things  got  a  bit  uncomfortable  for  me, 

for  the  sofa  began  to  bend  under  their  weight,  and  I 

had  to  dodge  and  creep  about  to  escape  getting  crushed. 

In  wriggling  about  in  this  way  I  pushed  my  feet  out 

from    under    the    sofa.     The    conversation    suddenly 

ceased  and  Bright  said,  '  Why,  Mr.  Tennant,  there  is 

something  under  the  sofa.     Look  ! '  and  so  my  father 

pulled  me  out  and  they  both  laughed,  and  I  said  that 

232 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

'  I  wanted  to  hear  Mr.  Bright  talk,  and  that  that  was 
the  reason  I  got  under  the  sofa/ 

I  remember  another  day,  when  I  was  something 
older,  that  Mr.  Bright  called  at  the  house  and  everybody 
was  out.  When  the  servant  opened  the  door  he  told 
Mr.  Bright  that  no  one  was  at  home.  I  was  upstairs. 
I  asked  the  servant  who  had  called.  He  said,  'Mr. 
Bright,'  whereupon  I  dashed  away  from  the  maid  who 
was  attending  to  my  toilet,  rushed  down  the  stairs  and 
ran  into  the  street,  following  Mr.  Bright  as  fast  as  I 
could.  I  got  up  with  him  just  as  he  was  entering 
Palace  Yard.  I  put  my  hand  into  his  arm  and  swung 
him  right  round,  and  said,  '  Now,  you  must  come 
back  with  me.  I  know  you  called  and  they  said  every- 
body was  out,  but  I  was  not  out.'  He  laughed 
and  came  back  with  me,  and  then  I  gave  him  tea 
and  he  talked  away  to  me.  In  1869  Mr.  Bright  sent 
me  a  present  of  Whittier's  poems,  and  there  it  is — 
handing  me  the  volume,  with  Bright's  letter  to  her 
father  on  the  occasion  fastened  into  it.  The  letter  ran 
as  follows : 

Board  of  Trade,  S.W. :  June,  29,  '69. 

Dear  Mr.  Tennant, — Thank  you  for  your  kind 
offer.  I  am  going  down  to  Wakefield  this  evening  only 
to  return  on  Friday,  and  therefore  cannot  accept  it. 
I  admire  Whittier's  poems  greatly ;  he  has  more 
influenced  the  American  mind  of  late  years  than  any 
other  of  their  Poets. 

I  hope  the  little  Book  will  give  pleasure  to  your 
daughter.  There  is  nothing  in  it  that  is  not  good  and 
pure. 

I  am  glad  to  hear  that  your  dear  invalid  is  better. 
I  am  always,  sincerely  yours, 

John  Bright. 

Lady  Stanley  has  related   the  following   incident 

233 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

about  Bright  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Times  on 
December  20,  1909  : 

John  Bright  frequently  called  on  us  on  his  way  to 
the  House  of  Commons.  He  seldom  would  take  tea, 
preferring  to  pocket  two  or  three  lumps  of  sugar.  One 
day,  however,  I  handed  him  a  very  hot  cup  of  tea  ;  we 
were  discussing  the  House  of  Lords,  and  I  asked  him, 
'  Now,  Mr.  Bright,  what  do  we  want  with  a  House  of 
Lords  ?  ' 

He  made  no  reply,  but  carefully  poured  the  hot 
tea  into  his  saucer  to  cool  it. 

Impetuously  I  repeated  my  question,  whereupon  the 
great  Liberal  statesman,  smiling,  gently  tapped  his 
finger  on  the  saucer  and  said,  '  This  is  the  House  of 
Lords.' 

Bright  [says  one  of  his  friends]  was  a  very  homely 
man.  He  liked  to  be  quite  alone,  or  with  the  most 
intimate  friends.  I  knew  him  from  about  1869  to  the 
time  of  his  death,  and  we  were  great  friends.  He  used 
to  stop  with  me  every  year  for  some  months.  I  used 
to  take  a  house  somewhere  in  Scotland,  and  he  would 
come  to  me  for  the  fishing.  He  liked  me  because  he 
supposed  that  I  was  an  honest  man  and  I  was  in  the 
habit  of  saying  what  I  thought ;  and  he  came  to 
me  because  he  knew  that  I  would  have  nobody  in 
the  house  but  himself;  in  fact,  that  I  would  keep 
people  away  from  him.  He  was  fond  of  reading 
aloud.  He  used  to  read  for  us  Milton  and  other 
books  which  I  forget.  I  remember  that  one  time  when 
he  was  staying  with  us,  there  was  an  article  in,  I 
think,  the  Quarterly  Review  on  Oratory,  and  many  of 
the  illustrations  were  taken  from  Bright's  speeches. 
I  brought  the  magazine  home.  I  said  to  Bright, 
'  Here  is  the  Quarterly  Review,  Mr.  Bright,  and  there 
is  an  article  in  it  which  will,  I  am  sure,  interest  you.' 
*  What   is  it  about  ?  '    he  asked.      I  said,   '  It  is  an 

234 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

article  on  Oratory,  and  there  are  a  great  many  quota- 
tions from  your  speeches/  '  Ah,  yes,'  he  said,  '  that 
will  interest  me.  Give  it  to  me/  I  then  gave  him  the 
article,  and  he  sat  in  an  armchair  and  read  it  aloud, 
quotations  and  all.  It  was  very  fine.  I  thought  he 
read  the  quotations  from  his  own  speeches  splendidly. 
He  liked  going  quietly  about  the  house.  He  liked  the 
feeling  of  being  alone  and  having  no  one  to  interfere 
with  him.  He  did  not  like  Tories  and  the  aristocracy. 
He  used  often  to  use  strong  language  about  them. 
I  am  not  a  politician  myself,  and  I  used  not  to  agree 
with  Mr.  Bright's  prejudices  in  this  respect.  I  could 
not  get  him  to  meet  Tories  and  members  of  the 
aristocracy. 

I  once  had  a  house  in  Scotland,  and [a  Tory 

magnate]  was  living  near  me.     Bright  was  coming  to 

stay  with  me,  and knew  it.     Lady said  to 

me  that  she  heard  Mr.  Bright  was  coming  to  stay  with 
us,  and  that  she  and  her  husband  would  like  to  meet 
him.  '  Of  course,'  she  said,  '  we  don't  like  his  politics, 
but  we  admire  his  oratory  and  admire  him,  and  we 
should  like  to  make  his  acquaintance.'  I  promised 
that  I  would  bring  Bright  to  see  them  when  he  came. 
I  told  Bright  on  his  arrival.  *  I  won't  go,'  said  he. 
*  But  you  must,'  said  I ;  '  I  have  promised  to  take  you.' 
'  I  don't  care,'  said  he ;  '  I  won't  go.'  I  explained  to  him 
that  this  would  place  me  in  an  awkward  position, 
but  it  was  no  use.  He  said  I  ought  to  have  made  no 
promise  about  him.   One  day  I  ordered  the  carriage  and 

determined,   if  I  could,   to  drive  him  to  the  s*. 

He  and  I  drove  off.  After  a  time  he  asked,  '  Where 
are  you    driving  to  ? '     I  said,  '  I  am  going  to  call 

on /    'Then,'  said  he,  'you  must  drop  me  in  the 

middle  of  the  road ;  I  won't  go.'  And  so,  of  course, 
we  returned  without  making  our  call.  I  induced 
him,  however,  to  call  on  a  distinguished  Tory 
Duchess.      They  talked    together  for   a    long    time. 

235 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

When  we  were  coming  away,  the  Duchess  said  to 
me  behind  the  door,  '  Mr.  Bright  is  a  very  nice 
man/  As  we  drove  off,  Bright  said,  '  A  nice  woman 
that,'  pointing  his  thumb  in  the  direction  of  the 
house.  His  prejudices  were  very  strong.  I  once 
had  an  old  Jacobite  house  in  Scotland ;  I  took 
Bright  for  a  walk  in  the  grounds.  I  said,  '  Do  you 
see  that  tree  ? '  '  Yes,'  said  he.  '  Well,'  I  said,  '  that 
tree  was  planted  in  1745  by  Prince  Charlie  himself.' 
'  It  is  not  any  the  better  for  that,'  said  Bright. 

He  was  a  very  stubborn  man.  When  he  put  his 
foot  down,  he  never  could  be  induced  to  take  it  up. 
He  was  very  fond  of  fishing,  but  he  knew  nothing 
about  fishing.  He  could  never  be  persuaded  to  hold 
the  rod  properly.  He  used  always  to  hold  it  straight 
out  as  a  coachman  holds  a  whip.  He  scarcely  ever 
caught  anything.  But  he  enjoyed  himself,  standing 
on  the  bank  of  a  river  or  sitting  in  a  boat,  waiting 
calmly.  ^     He  liked  solitude. 

I  don't  think  he  cared  for  pubhc  life.  I  think  it 
was  only  a  strong  sense  of  duty  that  led  him  to  take 
part  in  public  affairs.  When  the  first  Ministry  of  which 
he  was  a  member  was  formed,  I  remember  lunching 
with  him.  He  said,  '  I  don't  care  for  this  kind  of 
thing.  I  don't  want  to  be  in  the  Ministry.'  I  said, 
*  But  you  must  take  your  part,  Mr.  Bright.'  'Well, 
yes,'  he  said,  '  that's  what  they  say.  I  have  my  choice 
of  anything  but  the  War  Ofiice  or  the  Premiership. ' 

Bright  did  not  like  crowds.  Sometimes  when  he 
used  to  come  to   me,  crowds  would    gather   at   the 

^  Lady  Dorothy  NeviU  delicately  suggests  that  though  Sir  Alexander 
Cockburn  was  devoted  to  shooting,  he  seldom  hit  anything. — Remini- 
scences, p.  88. 

Lord  Russell  of  Killowen  told  me  that  though  Mr.  Forster  was  very 
fond  of  whist,  he  was  an  indifferent  player.  On  one  occasion  his  partner 
(an  expert  player)  rated  him  soundly  for  his  blunders.  Forster  having 
endured  much,  at  length  broke  forth,  '  Well,  call  me  Buckshot,  and  have 
done  with  it.' 

236 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

railway  station  to  see  him.  He  used  to  make  his  way 
rather  rudely,  I  thought,  through  the  crowd  to  the 
carriage,  and  drive  off. 

He  was  very  different  to  Mr.  Gladstone  in  that 
respect.  Gladstone  liked  to  be  noticed.  He  liked 
crowds.  I  used  to  go  with  Bright  to  Millais,  when 
his  picture  was  being  painted.  He  was  a  great 
trouble  to  Millais  ;  he  would  not  keep  quiet,  or  do 
as  he  was  told.  He  would  keep  getting  out  of  the 
chair,  walking  to  the  painting,  looking  at  it,  saying, 
'  It  is  not  a  bit  like '  ;  and  then  going  back  to  the 
chair,  asking  how  much  longer  he  was  to  remain,  and 
suddenly  getting  up  and  saying  he  would  not  stop  any 
longer.  I  think  his  picture  by  Millais  was  a  failure,  and 
it  was  his  fault.  He  was  so  impatient  and  restless.  He 
did  not  give  Millais  a  chance. i  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
very  different.  He  sat  patiently,  and  did  as  he  was 
told.  One  day  Millais  asked  me  to  come  to  his  studio 
to  meet  Gladstone.  I  went.  I  was  struck  by  the  differ- 
ence between  him  and  Bright.  Gladstone  was  as 
oratorical  in  private  as  he  was  in  public.  Bright,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  quiet,  and  spoke  in  a  low  con- 
versational tone.    He  had  a  beautiful  voice,  I  think. 

Bright  was  homely  and  simple,  as  I  say.  He 
used  always  to  shake  hands  with  my  coachman  (an 
old  servant)  when  he  came  and  went.  He  was  that 
kind  of  man.  I  saw  Bright  some  time  before  his  death 
at  the  Reform  Club.  He  said,  '  I  am  not  well,  and 
I  am  going  to  leave  public  life.  I  have  lost  my  nerve, 
and  can  no  longer  address  public  meetings.  We  shall 
take  a  house  together  somewhere,  and  live  quietly  and 
fish.'  Shortly  afterwards  he  left  London,  and  never 
returned. 

^  Sheridan  was  once  asked  If  he  had  ever  undergone  an  operation. 
He  replied,  '  Never,  except  when  sitting  for  my  picture  or  having  my 
hair  cut.'  It  is  quite  clear  that  Bright  regarded  '  sitting  for  his 
picture '  much  in  the  same  hght  as  Sheridan  did. 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

'  Bright  did  not  like  crowds/  He  was  not  fond  of 
public  speaking.  He  wished  to  be  alone.  But  he  was 
ever  ready  to  subordinate  his  own  feelings  and  inclina- 
tions to  those  of  others,  whenever  a  friend  was  to  be 
obliged  or  a  useful  purpose  served. 

In  1883  Bright  was  staying  at  Gawthorpe,  the 
Lancashire  residence  of  Sir  Ughtred  Kay-Shuttleworth 
(now  Lord  Shuttle  worth) .  Many  of  the  country  people 
were  anxious  to  see  him,  but  he  did  not  want  to  see 
any  one.  One  day  Sir  Ughtred  told  him  that  some 
people  wished  to  see  him,  and  asked  him  if  he  would 
meet  them  if  they  called  on  the  morrow.  Bright  said, 
'  Yes.'  He  thought  that  just  a  few  persons  would  call, 
but  when  the  morning  came  there  were  a  thousand 
persons  gathered  outside  the  house.  Bright  looked 
through  the  window  and  saw  them.  *  I  suppose,'  he  said 
to  Lady  Kay-Shuttleworth, '  I  had  better  say  something 
to  them.'  He  saw  a  large  chair  in  the  hall,  and  said, 
'  Perhaps  that  had  better  be  brought  out  and  I  will 
stand  on  it.'  Before  speaking  he  asked  Sir  Ughtred 
if  there  were  any  local  questions  on  which  it  might  be 
useful  for  him  to  say  something.  Sir  Ughtred  said 
that  there  was  some  slight  temporary  trouble  about 
strikes  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  that  it  might  be  useful 
for  him  to  say  something  on  the  matter.  Bright  then 
mounted  the  chair  and  delivered  a  brief  and  effective 
speech.  He  said  many  things  which  were  not  palatable 
to  his  audience,  but  were  serviceable  in  allaying  public 
irritation  and  promoting  tranquillity  in  the  neighbour- 
hood. 

While  staying  at  Gawthorpe  he  read  the  following 
entry  in  Lady  Kay-ShuttlewQrth's  autograph  book : 

238 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

What  is  the  resemblance  between  a  game  of  whist 
and  the  Egyptian  Campaign  ? 
Turkey  shuffled. 
Arabi  cut. 

England  led — played  the  deuce. 
France  played  the  Knave. 
France  lost  the  game. 
France  wanted  to  divide  the  honours. 

Bright  wrote  in  the  margin,  after  the  words  '  Eng- 
land led — played  the  deuce  '  :    '  True  enough.     J.  B.' 

Bright  did  not  care  for  social  gatherings,  but  he 
had  to  endure  them.  He  had  a  particular  aversion 
to  weddings;  but  he  had  sometimes  to  assist  at 
those  depressing  functions.  A  lady  who  sat  by  him 
at  a  wedding  breakfast  has  told  me  the  following  story : 

When  the  breakfast  was  nearly  over  Bright  said  to 
me,  '  I  hope  that  they  will  not  have  any  of  that  vulgar 
tomfoolery  of  speech-making  at  this  wedding.'  A  few 
minutes  afterwards  a  servant  came  to  Bright  with  a 
request  from  the  head  of  the  house  that  he  would  pro- 
pose the  health  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom.  Bright 
seemed  annoyed,  and  after  a  while  left  the  room.  He 
was  away  for  about  twenty  minutes.  He  then  re- 
turned, and  sat  by  my  side,  placing  a  card,  with  notes 
on  it,  on  a  wineglass.  Then  he  rose  and  made  a  charm- 
ing speech  from  the  notes.  In  the  course  of  the  speech 
he  told  this  story.  The  question  of  married  women's 
property  was  occupying  the  public  mind  at  the  time, 
and  steps  were  being  taken  for  the  introduction  of  a 
Bill  for  its  protection.  Bright's  daughters  tried  to 
get  signatures  to  a  petition  in  favour  of  the  Bill 
at  Rochdale.  They  brought  the  petition  to  two 
spinsters  (sisters)  belonging  to  the  working  class.  One 
of  the  sisters  said,  '  Oh  !  we  won't  sign  it.  We  are  not 
married,  and  we  have  not  any  interest  in  the  matter.' 

239 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

The  other  sister  said,  '  Well,  I  think  we  ought  to 
sign  it.  It  is  true  that  we  are  not  married,  but  then 
we  ought  to  help  them  as  is  so  unfortunate.' 

Bright  liked  punctuality  in  all  things — in  social 
matters  as  well  as  in  business  affairs.  Upon  one 
occasion  he  was  dining  at  Mr.  Potter's,  and  a  lady  and 
gentleman  arrived  late  for  dinner.  Bright  sat  next  the 
lady.  He  said  apropos  of  nothing,  '  There  are  two 
unpardonable  sins — one  writing  an  illegible  hand,  and 
the  other  being  late  for  dinner.' 

Bright  was  very  fond  of  children.  '  His  smile  was 
always  beautiful  when  he  was  with  children,'  one  of  his 
relatives  said  to  me.  He  used  sometimes  to  tell  good 
stories  about  children.  On  one  occasion  he  spoke  to  a 
lady  at  dinner  about  the  general  statement  that  women 
were  more  tender-hearted  than  men,  and  said  that  he 
remembered  once  seeing  two  children,  a  boy  and  a  girl, 
playing  together.  Suddenly  the  girl  burst  out  crying. 
He  went  up  to  comfort  her,  and  found  that  the  boy  was 
playing  with  some  worms.  He  said  to  the  girl,  '  He  is 
a  cruel  boy  ;  I  suppose  he  is  killing  the  worms.'  '  No,' 
said  she,  still  crying,  'that's  not  it,  but  he  won't 
let  me  kill  them.'  Generally  he  was  fond  of  telling 
humorous  stories  to  illustrate  an  argument.  The 
story  of  the  '  two  bloody  ducks  '  is  well  known.  He 
told  it  apropos  of  the  troubles  of  the  English  in  Egypt 
in  1883  and  1884.  A  hardened  criminal  was  tried  at  the 
Old  Bailey  for  stealing  a  pair  of  ducks.  It  was  a  clear 
case,  and  he  was  found  guilty.  On  being  asked  if  he 
had  anything  to  say  why  sentence  should  not  be  passed 
upon  him,  he  replied, '  I  have  only  to  say,  my  lord,  that  I 
am  perfectly  innocent.     I  am  as  innocent  as  any  man 

240 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

in  court.  I  am  as  innocent  as  your  lordship — but 
I  wish  I  never  saw  them  two  bloody  ducks/  His  story 
of  the  recalcitrant  juryman  apropos  of  Mr.  Roebuck's 
peculiar  temperament  must  be  quoted.  In  an  Irish 
debate  Mr.  Roebuck  ascribed  to  the  Irish  member — 
John  Francis  Maguire — words  which  he  had  never  used, 
and  then  contradicted  them.     Bright  said  : 

I  said  the  other  day  that  the  hon.  and  learned 
gentleman  [Mr.  Roebuck]  was  always  ready  to  con- 
tradict everybody.  He  gets  up  now,  and  not  only 
contradicts  my  hon.  friend,  but  makes  him  make  a 
speech  he  never  made — and  then  he  contradicts  that. 
He  reminds  me  of  a  case  I  saw  the  other  day  in  the 
newspapers,  in  which  a  man  objected  to  serve  on  a  jury. 
The  judge  said  he  was  wrong  in  making  the  objection, 
because  every  man  should  be  willing  to  serve  as  a  juror, 
and  therefore  he  could  not  excuse  him.  The  man  then 
said,  *  I  am  not  fit  to  be  a  juryman,  for  never  in  my 
whole  life  was  I  able  to  agree  with  any  one.'  But  the 
judge  encouraged  him  to  act,  and  told  him  he  should 
serve  as  a  juryman.  He  then  said  that  was  not  his 
only  infirmity,  for  he  had  discovered  that  he  was  not 
able  to  agree  with  himself. 

I  have  already  said  that  people  who  interrupted 
Bright  in  the  course  of  a  debate  generally  got  the 
worst  of  it,  and  I  gave  an  illustration  of  the  fact.^ 
I  shall  give  another  illustration.  He  was  speaking 
on  the  question  of  public  expenditure  for  the  purpose 
of  increasing  the  fortifications  of  the  country.  He 
said,  '  I  want  to  know  by  whom  this  expenditure 
was  urged  ;  was  it  by  a  united  Cabinet  ?      As  to  the 

^  See  ante,  p.  io6. 

241  R 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

military  authorities,  I  have  looked  into  their  recom- 
mendations, and  I  confess  I  am  amazed  at  the  absolute 

stupidity '    At  this  point  there  was  ironical  laughter. 

He  paused  for  an  instant,  and  then  added,  '  If  you 
want  a  word  less  offensive,  I  would  say  the  absolute 
lunacy  of  the  military  authorities  in  regard  to  this 
question.*  And  he  added  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  once 
said  that  if  you  were  to  follow  the  advice  of  military 
authorities  on  all  matters  relating  to  national  security, 
you  would  overwhelm  the  country  with  taxes  in  time 
of  peace. 

Bright  was  fond  of  reading.  He  loved  poetry ; 
and  his  favourite  studies  were  biography  and  history. 
The  Bible  and  Milton  were  doubtless  the  books  he  liked 
best.  But  his  tastes  were  catholic,  and  he  would 
recite  at  call  stanzas  from  '  Childe  Harold,'  or  Shelley's 
*  Mask  of  Anarchy '  (which,  I  believe,  he  first  heard 
repeated  by  Sir  James  Kay-Shuttleworth)  as  well  as 
pages  from  '  Paradise  Lost.'  He  did  not  like  Shake- 
speare. He  told  Lord  Charles  Russell  that  the 
coarseness  of  the  great  English  dramatist  disgusted 
him. 

Bright  read  aloud  and  recited  beautifully,  and  was 
always  ready  to  indulge  in  the  art. 

*  During  the  struggles  over  the  Reform  Bill  of  1866,' 
says  Mr. McCarthy,  '  Bright  used  to  come  to  the  Morning 
Star  office  almost  every  night,  to  tell  me  how  the  debates 
were  going,  and  offer  some  suggestions  as  to  the  way  in 
which  this  or  that  point  of  the  controversy  ought  to  be 
treated.^    Often  and  often,  when  he  had  given  his  views 

^  It  is  well  known  that  Bright  took  a  keen  interest  in  the  Morning 
Star — an  advanced  Liberal  paper,  edited  at  this  time  by  Mr.  McCarthy. 

242 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

on  these  subjects,  he  relapsed  into  some  talk  about 
Milton,  and  sometimes  declaimed  a  few  lines  from  his 
favourite  poet,  with  a  melody  and  majesty  of  voice  and 
intonation  which,  all  unstudied  as  his  manner  was,  I 
have  seldom  heard  equalled  from  pulpit  or  stage.  It 
was  a  genuine  pleasure  to  hear  Bright  quote  from  any 
poet  he  loved,  but  more  especially  from  Milton.  One 
strange  thing  was  that,  with  all  his  devotion  to  Milton, 
his  rapture  about  Milton,  he  never  allowed  his  own 
simple  Anglo-Saxon  style  to  be  affected  in  the  least 
by  any  of  Milton's  Hellenised  or  Latinised  turns  of 
expression.* 

Apropos  of  his  admiration  for  Milton,  I  may  quote 
the  following  extract  from  his  address  at  the  opening 
of  a  free  library  in  Birmingham  in  1882  : 

Some  years  ago — I  dare  say  it  is  twenty  years  ago 
— on  the  invitation  of  two  friends  of  mine,  I  was 
spending  a  fortnight  in  Sutherlandshire,  on  the  Helms- 
dale river,  engaged  in  the  healthful  occupation  of 
endeavouring  to  get  some  salmon  out  of  it.  .  .  .  In 
the  course  of  the  day,  walking  down  the  river,  we 
entered  the  cottage  of  a  shepherd.  There  was  no 
one  at  home,  I  think,  except  the  shepherd's  wife  or 
mother — I  forget  which,  but  she  was  an  elderly  woman, 
matronly,  very  kind  and  very  courteous  to  us.  Whilst 
we  were  in  the  house  I  saw  upon  the  window-sill  a 
small  and  very  thin  volume,  and  I  took  the  liberty 
of  going  up  to  it,  and,  taking  it  in  my  hand,  I  found, 
to  my  surprise  and  delight,  that  it  was  an  edition 
which  I  had  never  met  with  before,  or  since — an 
edition  of  '  Paradise  Regained  ' — the  work  of  a  poet 
unsurpassed  in  any  country  or  in  any  age,  and  a 
poem  which  I  believe  great  authorities  admit,  if 
*  Paradise  Lost '  did  not  exist,  would  be  the  finest 
in  our  language.     I  said  I  was  surprised  and  delighted 

243 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

down  in  this  remote  country,  in  this  solitary  house, 
in  this  humble  abode  of  this  shepherd,  to  find  this 
volume  which  seemed  to  me  to  transfigure  the  cottage. 
I  felt  as  if  that  humble  dwelling  was  illumined,  as 
it  was,  indeed,  by  the  genius  of  Milton.  .  .  .  Now, 
whenever  I  think  of  some  of  the  rivers  of  Scotland, 
when  I  think  of  the  river  Helmsdale,  if  I  turn,  as  my 
mind  does,  to  that  cottage,  I  always  see,  and  shall 
never  forget,  that  small,  thin  volume  which  I  found 
on  the  window-sill,  and  the  finding  of  which  seemed 
to  me  to  lift  the  dwellers  in  that  cottage  to  a  some- 
what higher  sphere. 

Mr.  McCarthy  continues  : 

I  heard  him  quote  with  exquisite  feeling  the  line 
from  Wordsworth's  poem  which  asked  whether  the 
cuckoo  is  a  bird  '  or  but  a  wandering  voice.'  I  may 
say,  too,  that  he  delighted  in  Shelley's  poem  '  To  a 
Skylark,'  and  Logan's  lines  *  To  the  Cuckoo.'  ^ 
Of  the  three  poems — that  of  Wordsworth,  that 
of  Shelley,  and  that  of  Logan — he  liked  Logan's 
the  best,  as  a  whole ;  but  the  particular  line 
from  Wordsworth  which  I  have  mentioned  held 
his  fancy  more  than  anything  else  in  the  three. 
I  shall  never  forget  the  manner  in  which  he  quoted 

^  '  Sweet  bird !  thy  bower  is  ever  green, 
Thy  sky  is  ever  clear  ; 
Thou  hast  no  sorrow  in  thy  song. 
No  winter  in  thy  year ! 

'  O  could  I  fly,  I'd  fly  with  thee ! 

We'd  make,  with  joyful  wing. 
Our  annual  visit  o'er  the  globe. 
Companions  of  the  Spring.' 

It  is  said  that  the  real  author  of  these  lines  Is  Michael  Bruce,  not 
Logan.  See  the  Works  of  Michael  Bruce,  edited  with  memoir  and 
notes  by  the  Rev.  A.  B.  Grosart,  Edinburgh,  1865. 

244 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

the  words  '  or  but  a  wandering  voice/  giving 
them  additional  expression  and  meaning  by  a  quick 
gentle  moving  of  his  hand  here  and  there,  as  if  to 
indicate  the  places  from  which  the  wandering  voice 
made  itself  successively  heard. 

Upon  one  occasion  in  the  House  of  Commons  he 
repeated  to  Mr.  G.  W.  E.  Russell  a  long  poem,  in  eight- 
syllabled  lines,  about  the  First  Advent ;  the  burden 
of  which  was  that  Our  Lord  might  have  come  as  a 
king  to  claim  obedience,  or  a  warrior  to  enforce 
His  doctrine  by  resistless  armies,  but  that  He  had 
elected  to  come  poor  and  humble,  an  apostle  of 
peace,  satisfied  that  His  doctrines  could  be  established 
by  moral  precept,  without  the  aid  of  the  sword. 
Mr.  Russell  said  that  this  poem  was  not  much  in  itself, 
but  that,  recited  by  Bright,  it  was  magnificent.  Bright 
could  not  give  Mr.  Russell  the  name  or  author  of 
the  poem.  He  said  that  he  had  seen  it  in  some  mis- 
cellany long  years  ago  and  had  committed  it  to  memory, 
not  on  account  of  the  merit  of  the  lines,  but  of  the 
beauty  and  the  truth  of  the  idea.  One  day  Mrs.  Kay, 
the  widow  of  the  distinguished  publicist  Joseph  Kay 
(and  the  daughter  of  Thomas  Drummond),  called  on 
Bright  at  his  apartment  in  Piccadilly  in  reference  to  a 
preface  which  he  was  writing  for  her  husband's  book, 
'  Free  Trade  in  Land.'  The  subject  of  poetry  was 
incidentally  mentioned,  whereupon  Bright  wandered 
away  from  the  subject  in  hand  and  took  up  some 
books  of  poetry  and  read  for  her.  When  visiting 
at  Fredley,  Surrey  (the  country  house  of  the  late  Mrs. 
Drummond),  he  used  frequently  to  read  aloud  to  the 
company.     Whenever  he  read  anywhere  lines  which 

245 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

appealed  to  his  sense  of  beauty  or  sense  of  humour 
he  immediately  wrote  them  down  on  a  slip  of  paper 
and  carried  the  paper  about  with  him,  taking  it 
out  of  his  pocket  from  time  to  time,  to  read  the  lines 
and  commit  them  to  memory.  Poetry  was  his  passion  ; 
and  assuredly  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there  are 
many  passages  in  his  speeches  which  are  simply  prose 
poems. 

As  an  orator  Bright  stands  in  the  first  place. 
Opinions  may  vary,  and  do  no  doubt  vary,  upon  the 
question  whether  in  this  respect  he  was  the  inferior  or 
superior  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  but  every  one  agrees  that  he 
had  no  other  equal — no  other  rival — among  the  public 
speakers  of  his  own  day.     Matthew  Arnold  says : 

I  heard  Bright  to  perfection  [at  a  public  dinner 
at  Birmingham,  October  29,  1858].  The  company  was 
dismally  obscure,  the  dinner  abominably  bad,  the 
speaking — all  but  his — unutterably  wearisome  ;  but 
his  speech  made  amends.  He  is  an  orator  of  almost 
the  highest  rank — voice  and  manner  excellent ;  perhaps 
not  quite  flow  enough — not  that  he  halts  or  stammers, 
but  I  like  to  have  sometimes  more  of  a  rush  than  he 
ever  gives  you.  He  is  a  far  better  speaker  than 
Gladstone.  ^ 

In  his  Diary,  quoted  in  the  '  Life  of  Bishop  Wilber- 
force,'  Lord  Carlisle  says  : 

April  19,  1859. — We  talked  of  Parliamentary 
speakers.  The  Bishop  [Wilberforce]  quite  agrees  with 
me  in  putting  Gladstone  first  in  the  present  House  of 
Commons,  and  Bright  second.  We  both,  too,  put 
Lord  Derby  first  in  the  Lords;  he  said  Brougham 
did  not  rate  him  high. 

^  Letters.. 
246 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

Bright  took  infinite  pains  in  the  preparation  of  his 
speeches.  He  thought  out  the  subject  night  and  day, 
sometimes  committed  the  peroration  and  other  im- 
portant passages  to  memory,  though  in  the  main  he 
trusted  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  for  the  words 
in  which  to  clothe  his  ideas.  While  engaged  in  the 
work  he  was  nervous,  silent,  reserved,  keeping  much 
apart  and  avoiding  all  occasions  of  interruption  and 
distraction.  When  the  speech  was  delivered  he  was 
himself  again.  Upon  one  occasion  he  gave  Mr.  G.  W.  E. 
Russell  some  '  hints '  about  speech-making. 

'  Of  course,'  says  Mr.  Russell,  '  I  cannot  pretend  to 
recall  what  he  said  verbally,  but  it  was  like  this :  ''  You 
can't  prepare  your  subject  too  thoroughly ;  but  it  is  easy 
to  over-prepare  your  words.  Divide  your  subject  into 
two  or  three — not  more — main  sections.  For  each 
section  prepare  an  '  island,' — by  this  I  mean  a  carefully 
prepared  sentence  to  clinch  your  argument.  Make  this 
the  conclusion  of  the  section,  and  then  trust  yourself 
to  swim  to  the  next  island.  Keep  the  best  island  for 
the  peroration  of  the  speech,  and  then  at  once  sit 
down."  ' 

Bright  wrote  to  a  correspondent  in  1888  : 

As  to  modes  of  preparation  for  speaking,  it  seems 
to  me  that  every  man  would  readily  discover  what  suits 
him  best.  To  write  speeches  and  then  to  commit  them 
to  memory  is,  as  you  term  it,  a  double  slavery,  which 
I  could  not  bear.  To  speak  without  preparation, 
especially  on  great  and  solemn  topics,  is  rashness,  and 
cannot  be  recommended.  When  I  intend  to  speak  on 
anything  that  seems  to  me  important,  I  consider  what 
it  is  that  I  wish  to  impress  upon  my  audience.  I  do 
not  write  my  facts  or  my  arguments,  but  make  notes 

247 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

on  two  or  three  or  four  slips  of  notepaper,i  giving  the 
line  of  argument  and  the  facts  as  they  occur  to  my 
mind,  and  I  leave  the  words  to  come  at  call  while  I 
am  speaking.  There  are  occasionally  short  passages 
which  for  accuracy  I  may  write  down,  as  sometimes  also 
— almost  invariably — the  concluding  words  or  sentences 
may  be  written. 

This  is  very  nearly  all  I  can  say  on  this  question. 
The  advantage  of  this  plan  is  that,  while  it  leaves  a 
certain  and  sufficient  freedom  to  the  speaker,  it  keeps 
him  within  the  main  lines  of  the  original  plan  upon 
which  the  speech  was  framed,  and  what  he  says, 
therefore,  is  more  likely  to  be  compact  and  not 
wandering  and  diffuse.     Forgive  me  if  I  say  no  more. 

On  one  occasion  he  said  to  Sir  Richard  Tangye  : 

Don't  speak  unless  you  have  something  to  say. 
Don't  be  tempted  to  go  on  after  you  have  said  it. 
Use  the  simplest  words,  bring  out  the  consonants  well 
(the  vowels  will  take  care  of  themselves),  and  let  every 
sentence,  as  far  as  possible,  be  complete  in  itself.^ 

Bishop  Wilberforce  wrote  in  his  Diary  for  May  29, 
1867 :  '  Dined  Gladstone's :  Spencer,  Lord  Cowper, 
Bright,  Glynne,  and  Adam.  Bright  talked  a  great  deal. 
Studies  his  speeches;  prepares  his  illustrations  and 
quotations.    Had  prepared  both  Cave  and  Dog' 

This  last  sentence  refers  to  Bright' s  famous  allusion 
(during  the  debates  on  the  Reform  Bill  of  1866)  to 
the  '  Cave  of  AduUam '  and  the  '  Scotch  Terrier,' 
anent  the  position  of  Horsman  and  Lowe.     I  have 

^  The  facsimile  shows  two  sHps  of  notepaper,  in  Bright's  hand- 
writing, found  by  a  reporter,  on  a  table,  at  a  public  meeting  which 
had  been  addressed  by  Bright. 

^  Stuart  Re  id.  Life  of  Sir  Richard  Tangye. 

248 


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PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

already  quoted  ^  the  passage,  but  I  shall  repeat  it 
here,  in  order  that  what  follows  may  be  made  clear  at 
a  glance.     Bright  said  : 

The  right  hon.  gentleman  [Mr.  Horsman]  .  .  .  has 
retired  into  what  may  be  called  his  political  Cave  of 
AduUam,  and  he  has  called  about  him  every  one  that 
was  in  distress,  and  every  one  that  was  discontented. 
The  right  hon.  gentleman  has  been  anxious  to  form  a 
party  in  this  House,  .  .  .  and  at  last  the  right  hon. 
gentleman  has  succeeded  in  hooking  the  right  hon. 
gentleman  the  member  for  Calne  [Lowe].  I  know 
there  was  an  opinion  expressed  many  years  ago  that 
two  men  would  make  a  party.  When  a  party  is 
formed  of  two  men  so  amiable — so  discreet — as  the 
two  right  hon.  gentlemen,  we  may  hope  to  see  for  the 
first  time  in  Parliament  a  party  perfectly  harmonious, 
and  distinguished  by  mutual  and  unbroken  trust. 
But  there  is  one  difficulty  which  it  is  impossible  to 
remove.  This  party  of  two  reminds  me  of  the  Scotch 
terrier,  which  was  so  covered  with  hair  that  you 
could  not  tell  which  was  the  head  and  which  was  the 
tail  of  it. 

Referring  to  this  speech.  Bishop  Wilberforce  is 
reported  to  have  said  to  Bright,  '  Surely  you  do  not 
always  prepare  your  illustrations.  When  you  used 
that  famous  one  of  the  dog,  you  had  been  suddenly 
attacked,  and  it  was  impossible  that  you  could  have 
prepared  it/  Bright  replied,  '  It  is  true  all  the  same. 
I  had  prepared  it  for  a  former  speech,  but  while  I  was 
speaking  I  looked  at  Lowe  and  my  heart  melted  and 
I  left  it  out ;  but  when  on  the  occasion  he  attacked  me, 
then  I  had  no  pity  and  I  gave  him  the  dog.* 

^  Ante,  p.  187. 

249 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

Perhaps  one  of  the  most  beautiful  images  in  any 
of  Blight's  speeches  was  the  allusion  to  the  '  Angel 
of  Death/  in  the  speech  on  the  Crimean  War.i  Mrs. 
McLaren  (Bright' s  sister)  said  to  me,  in  reference  to 
this  subject,  that  Bright  had  once  talked  to  her  about 
it,  expressing  his  surprise  that  the  allusion  had  pro- 
duced such  an  extraordinary  effect.  '  It  came  to  me,' 
he  said,  '  very  simply  and  naturally.  I  was  lying 
awake  in  bed  in  the  morning,  thinking  of  my  speech 
and  of  all  the  calamities  which  the  war  had  brought 
about,  when  suddenly  the  idea,  without  being  sought 
for  by  me,  flashed  upon  my  mind.  I  did  not  think 
anything  more  about  it  except  that  it  was  true,  and 
I  was  surprised  at  the  effect  which  it  produced  on  the 
House  of  Commons.* 

While  in  the  main  Bright  carefully  prepared  his 
orations,  he  could  on  occasion  deliver  an  effective  ex- 
tempore speech.  He  seems  to  have  delivered  two  such 
speeches  on  the  Burials  Bill — one  in  1875,  and  one  in 
1880;  both  produced  a  profound  effect  upon  the 
House  of  Commons.  His  account  of  a  Friend's  burial 
in  the  former  speech  was  listened  to  with  deep  feeling. 
He  said : 

I  will  take  the  case  of  my  own  sect,  and  try  to 
draw  an  argument  from  that.  We  have  no  baptism  ; 
we  do  not  think  it  necessary.  We  have  no  service — 
no  ordered  and  stated  service — over  the  dead.  We 
do  not  think  that  necessary.  But  when  a  funeral 
occurs  in  my  sect,  the  body  is  borne  with  as  much 
decency  and  solemnity  as  in  any  other  sect  or  in  any 
other  case  to  the  graveside.     The   coffin   is   laid  by 

^  Ante,  p.  107. 
250 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

the  side  of  the  grave.  The  family  and  friends  and 
the  mourners  stand  around,  and  they  are  given  some 
time — no  fixed  time  ;  it  may  be  five  minutes  or  ten,  or 
even  longer — for  that  private  and  solemn  meditation 
to  which  the  grave  invites  even  the  most  unthinking 
and  the  most  frivolous.  If  any  one  there  feels  it  his 
duty  to  offer  any  word  of  exhortation,  he  is  at  liberty 
to  offer  it.  If  he  feels  that  he  can  bow  the  knee  and 
offer  a  prayer  to  Heaven,  not  for  the  dead,  but  for 
those  who  stand  around  the  grave,  for  comfort  for  the 
widow  or  for  succour  and*  fatherly  care  for  the  father- 
less children,  that  prayer  is  offered.  Well,  but  if 
this  were  done  in  one  of  your  graveyards — if,  for 
example,  such  a  thing  were  done  there,  and  a  member 
of  my  sect,  or  a  Baptist,  an  Independent,  or  a  Wesleyan 
came  to  be  interred  in  one  of  your  graveyards,  and 
if  some  God-fearing  and  good  man  there  spoke  some 
word  of  exhortation,  or  on  his  knees  offered  a  prayer 
to  God,  is  there  one  of  you  on  this  side  of  the  House 
or  on  that,  or  one  of  your  clergymen,  or  any  thought- 
ful and  Christian  man  connected  with  your  Church, 
who  would  dare  in  the  sight  of  Heaven  to  condemn 
that,  or  to  interfere  with  it  by  force  of  law  ? 

In  the  course  of  this  speech  he  made  use  of  the 
following  words  which,  at  the  time,  gave  offence  to 
members  of  the  Church  of  England :  '  Some  one  will 
say  that  in  Scotland  they  do  not  care  about  these 
things,  because  their  ground  is  not — what  do  they 
call  it  ?  —  is  not  consecrated.'  Nearly  two  years 
afterwards  (November  1877)  Dr.  Magee,  the  Bishop 
of  Peterborough,  in  referring  to  these  words,  said  : 

It  was  my  fortune,  or  misfortune,  to  have  been 
in  the  gallery  of  the  House  when  Mr.  Bright  was 
delivering  what  appeared  to  me  to  be  an  exquisitely 

251 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

beautiful  and  touching  speech  upon  a  sorely  vexed 
question — the  Burials  Bill.  I  never  heard  a  speech 
more  full  of  pathetic  beauty  and  power ;  but  when 
speaking  on  this  subject  it  occurred  to  the  great 
orator  to  stop  and  to  sneer  at  the  observances  of  the 
Church  of  England,  and,  speaking  of  his  own  burial- 
grounds,  to  say,  '  They  have  not  been — what  do 
they  call  it  ? — consecrated/  I  confess,  when  I  heard 
that,  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  an  unworthy  jeer,  un- 
worthy of  the  speaker,  unworthy  of  the  subject,  and 
unworthy  of  the  place — a  jeer  at  the  cherished  religious 
feelings  and  observances  of  many  who  stood  around 
him. 

Bright  wrote  to  the  Bishop  in  reply  : 

I  have  read  your  speech,  and  write  to  make  one 
correction  in  it.  You  refer  to  my  speech  on  the 
Burials  Bill,  to  which  you  give  too  much  praise,  but 
you  condemn  what  you  term  the  '  sneer '  intended 
in  my  mention  of  the  ceremony  of  '  consecration.' 
I  assure  you  there  was  no  sneer  intended.  The 
speech  was  entirely  unpremeditated.  I  had  no  in- 
tention of  speaking  on  the  question  when  I  went  down 
to  the  House,  and  what  I  said  arose  from  feelings 
excited  during  the  debate.  When  I  came  to  the 
word  *  consecration,'  it  entirely  escaped  me,  and  for 
the  moment  I  could  not  recall  it.  In  my  difficulty  I 
turned  to  my  friends  on  the  bench  near  me,  and  said, 
'  What  is  it  called  ?  '  or  '  What  do  they  call  it  ?  ' 
One  or  more  of  them  answered,  *  Consecration,'  and 
one  or  more  laughed,  I  suppose  at  my  ignorance  or 
forgetfulness,  and  this  laugh,  which  was  somewhat 
ill-timed,  made  that  seem  a  sneer  which  was  never 
so  intended  by  me. 

This  charge  has  been  made  against  me  more 
than  once,  but  always,  I  think,  in  party  newspapers, 
to  which  I  did  not  think  it  needful  to  reply ;    but 

252 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

coming  from  you,  I  write  now  to  correct  an  error 
and  misrepresentation  which  perhaps  I  ought  to 
have  corrected  before. 

In  the  speech  deUvered  in  1880  Bright  made  an 
effective  appeal  to  churchmen.     He  said  : 

What  are  the  sentiments  of  the  people,  men  and 
women,  and  all  persons,  with  regard  to  the  spot  of 
ground  where  their  nearest  relatives  lie  buried  ? 
What  does  a  man  think  of  the  little  plot  where  his  wife 
lies ;  the  widow,  of  the  plot  where  her  husband  lies  ; 
the  parents,  where  some  innocent  children  that  have 
been  taken  from  them  lie  ;  or  the  children,  when  they 
remember  the  place  where  their  parents  are  buried  ? 
Is  there  not  an  attachment  to  that  place — a  sympathy 
with  it — something  that  one  can  never  express  in  words 
— beyond  what  you  will  find  in  the  minds  of  all  of  us 
with  regard  to  any  other  plot  of  ground  on  the  face  of 
the  earth  ?  I  knew  a  poor  man — a  very  old  man  now 
— I  think  he  is  ninety.  I  think  he  boasts  he  is  the  oldest 
man  in  the  town  in  which  I  live,  and  he  is  as  proud  of  his 
age  as  it  is  possible  to  be.  I  have  heard  that  he,  after 
the  loss  of  his  wife,  perhaps  twenty  years  ago,  walked 
two  miles  every  Sunday  for  years  to  the  cemetery  where 
his  wife  was  buried.  There  he  went  to  think  of  her  he 
had  lost ;  to  shed  a  tear,  probably,  over  her  grave ;  to 
offer  a  prayer  in  the  hope  that  the  separation  was  only 
temporary,  and  that  as  he  grew  older  the  time  during 
which  they  would  be  separated  would  be  every  day 
shortened.  Well,  if  this  grave  was  in  one  of  your 
churchyards,  and  if  he  were  a  Dissenter,  his  affection 
for  that  place  of  burial  would  be  just  as  great  as  if  it  had 
been  in  a  cemetery  or  in  a  Dissenting  chapel-yard ;  and 
you  would  find  that  he  would  visit  it ;  his  affections 
would  linger  round  it ;  he  would  be,  no  doubt,  lured, 
time  after  time,  to  visit  the  burial-place,  and  enter  your 

253 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

church  ;  and  if  he  did  not  become  a  member  of  your 
church,  and  one  of  your  constant  congregation,  it  would 
be  absolutely  impossible  that  he  could  be  hostile  to  it.  i 

Going  into  the  division  lobby  afterwards  with  Mr. 
Pennington,  Mr.  Pennington  said,  '  Well,  Mr.  Bright, 
you  ''  broke  '*  the  House  to-night.'  Bright  replied, 
'  Well,   I  did  not  intend  to  speak  at  all.' 

Bright  certainly  had  not  the  '  flow '  of  Gladstone. 
But  his  dignified  bearing,  his  beautifully  modulated 
voice,  the  varied  tones  of  which  served  so  well  to  ex- 
press the  sentiments  which  inspired  him,  and  his  per- 
fect mastery  of  the  purest  and  noblest  English  ever 
spoken,  have  given  him  an  unrivalled  pre-eminence 
among  the  orators  of  his  nation.  Bright  was  more 
than  a  great  orator.  He  was  a  great  moral  force. 
Indeed,  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  his  speeches 
is  perhaps  rather  their  moral  strength  than  even  their 
oratorical  grandeur.  Those  who  have  listened  to 
Bright,  and  those  who  read  his  speeches  to-day,  will  feel 
that  this  is  the  impression  they  make.  Bright  believed 
in  the  moral  law ;  he  thought  that  the  world  ought 
to  be  governed  by  the  moral  law  ;  and  he  preached  the 
doctrine  that  crimes  could  not  be  made  virtues  because 
they  were  committed  by  sovereigns  and  statesmen. 
His  creed  was,  in  truth,  summed  up  in  a  single  sentence : 
*  I  most  devoutly  believe  that  the  moral  law  was  not 
written  for  men  alone  in  their  individual  character,  but 
that  it  was  written  as  well  for  nations.'  ^ 

^  House  of  Commons,  August  12,  1880.  On  this  occasion  the 
second  reading  of  the  Bill  was  carried  by  258  to  79,  and  the  measure 
soon  became  law. 

2  Bright,  Speeches. 

254 


CHAPTER  XIII 

LAST   DAYS 

On  March  28,  1888,  John  Bright  made  his  last 
appearance  in  pubUc.  It  was  at  Birmingham,  on  the 
occasion  of  a  banquet  given  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  on  his 
return  from  a  mission  to  the  United  States  of  America, 
in  reference  to  the  differences  between  that  country  and 
Canada  on  the  subject  of  commercial  relations.  As 
this  was  the  last  speech  delivered  by  Bright,  and 
as  it  touches  upon  questions  of  living  interest — Tariffs, 
House  of  Lords,  Imperial  Federation,  Foreign  Policy — I 
shall  set  out  the  greater  portion  of  it. 

Take  the  question  of  commerce  between  the  two 
countries.  If  you  were  in  the  extreme  east  of  the 
Dominion  of  Canada,  with  your  back  to  the  Atlantic, 
and  you  looked  straight  across  the  Continent  to  the 
Pacific,  you  would  have  an  imaginary  line  of  nearly 
3000  miles  in  length.  On  the  right,  the  north,  you 
would  have  five  millions,  or  not  quite,  I  think,  of 
Canadians,  and  I  think  you  would  have  sixty  millions 
of  the  population  of  the  United  States  on  the  south. 
What  have  these  people  done  ?  The  sixty  millions  of  the 
population  of  the  United  States  have  built  up  a  wall 
the  whole  length  of  this  3000  miles,  not  of  bricks  or  of 
stone,  but  of  Acts  of  Congress,  and  they  call  it  by  the 

255 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

general  name  of  '  tariff ' ;  and,  on  the  other  side,  the  five 
milUons  of  Canadians  have  built  a  wall,  also  of  the  same 
length  and  pretty  nearly  of  the  same  height,  and  they 
call  that  also  ^  tariff/  But  these  walls  are  there  for  the 
purpose  of  intercepting  commerce  between  the  sixty 
millions  on  the  south  and  the  five  millions  on  the  north. 
And  the  five  millions  on  the  north  have  done  another 
thing.  They  have  turned  a  corner  and  run  their  tariff 
wall  on  the  eastern  coast  of  the  continent  northward, 
and  thus  have  done  their  best  also  to  a  large  extent  to 
shut  out  commerce  with  the  mother  country.  Now  I 
think  that  is  a  fair  statement  of  the  unwisdom  of  our 
kinsmen  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  But  this 
system — as  systems  so  stupid  and  foolish  generally  do — 
fails  to  give  satisfaction  to  the  northern  side  of  the 
country.  The  Canadians  complain  that  they  are  shut 
out  from  free  commerce  with  the  millions  of  their 
neighbours  in  the  south,  and  of  course  some  persons 
in  the  south  complain  that  they  are  shut  out  by  this 
barrier  from  the  trade  they  might  have  with  the 
millions  of  the  Canadian  population :  and  the  Canadians 
say  that  their  trade  is  blocked,  that  in  point  of  fact  they 
are  very  badly  treated,  and  that  they  cannot  buy  things 
they  would  like  to  buy  and  cannot  sell  things  they 
would  like  to  sell.  They  can  neither  buy  nor  sell  with 
freedom,  and  they  are  very  greatly  dissatisfied,  and 
they  wish  those  barriers  to  be  thrown  down.  I  think 
that  is  a  very  sensible  wish,  and  I  am  perfectly  certain 
that,  whatever  arrangements  may  be  made,  they  will 
be  thrown  down.  An  old  friend  of  mine,  the  late 
Edward  EUice,  who  was  member  for  Coventry  a  great 
many  years,  had  a  property  in  Canada  in  the  later 
years  of  his  life.  He  paid  a  visit  to  the  United  States, 
and  he  went  to  look  at  his  property,  as  was  very 
natural,  and  when  he  came  back,  in  talking  to  me 
about  it,  he  entered  into  the  subject  of  the  possible 
connexion  between  the  United  States  and  Canada. 

256 


LAST  DAYS 

Speaking  then  of  it  as  a  political  connexion  that  was 
possible  at  some  future  time,  he  said  he  was  quite 
certain  that  if  that  connexion  took  place,  and  if  Canada 
became  a  portion  of  the  United  States,  his  Canadian 
estate  would  immediately,  or  very  soon,  be  doubled  in 
value.  He  knew  what  he  was  talking  about,  and  if  it 
was  true  of  his  estate  it  would  be  true  to  some  extent  of 
perhaps  hundreds  and  thousands  of  estates  north  of  the 
tariff  barrier.  My  opinion  is,  that  if  economical  facts 
of  that  nature  are  so  strong  there  will  be  a  tendency — a 
tendency  that  can  hardly  be  resisted — to  get  over  the 
sentiment,  however  strong  and  however  commendable, 
that  it  is  better  for  the  Canadians  to  be  associated 
politically  with  Great  Britain  than  associated  politically 
with  the  American  Union.  This  is  a  matter  which  is 
pressing  on,  because  there  is  a  large  portion  of  the 
Canadian  population — a  considerable  portion,  at  any 
rate — who  believe  themselves  to  be  greatly  injured 
by  the  commercial  difficulties  between  them  and  their 
kinsmen  in  the  United  States  ;  and  there  are,  I  believe, 
more  than  a  million  of  Canadians  who  have  gone  south 
and  are  living  in  the  United  States. 

The  consequence  is  that  the  pressing  interest  of  the 
populations  is  such  as  to  raise  for  discussion  a  question 
which,  I  say,  may  be  one  of  considerable  difficulty,  but  I 
hope  it  will  be  one  that  will  not  lead  to  any  dangerous 
collision  between  the  United  States  and  this  country. 
We  have  had  some  discussion  lately,  as  you  know, 
about  what  is  called  the  Federation  of  the  Empire. 
There  is  a  member  of  the  House  of  Peers — rather  a 
lively  and  plucky  nobleman.  Lord  Rosebery — who  has 
been  making  speeches,  interesting  speeches,  but  the 
most  interesting  to  me,  and  the  longest  one,  is  one  on 
the  reform  of  the  House  of  Lords.  Now,  that  speech, 
as  I  said,  was  a  long  one  ;  I  think  it  was  at  least  five 
columns.  I  read  it  with  great  interest.  I  think  it  was 
a  speech  of  singular  ability,  and  the  only  fault  in  it  was 

257  ' 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

this — that,  however  eloquent  were  its  passages,  when 
you  came  to  examine  it  thoroughly  you  found  that  it 
led  to  nowhere.     I  spoke  of  him  as  a  plucky  nobleman. 
Well,  he  is  a  member  of  the  order  of  the  peerage  for 
whom  I  have  a  great  sympathy  and  a  great  respect. 
He  has  taken  in  hand  what  a  contractor  would  call 
two  very  big  jobs.     One  of  them  is  the  reform  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  the  other  is  the  Federation  of  the 
Empire.     The  question  of  the  House  of  Lords  is  one 
upon  which  one  might  say  a  good  deal,  and,  perhaps, 
one  might  say  something  quite  as  sensible  as  anything 
which  was  said  by  Lord  Rosebery  or  any  of  the  peers 
who  spoke  on  that  interesting  question.     But  if  you 
like  we  will  leave  the  House  of  Lords  for  some  other 
opportunity.     The    question    will    grow,    and    many 
opinions  will  be  expressed,  and  possibly,  though  not 
certainly,    within   no   unreasonable   time   some   good 
result  will  come.     But  we  will  go,  if  you  will  allow  me, 
to  the  question  of  the  Federation  of  the  Empire  ;   and 
with  regard  to  that  I  have  read  a  great  number  of 
speeches  upon  it.     I  always  read  what  people  say  upon 
the  subject  because  I  am  one  of  those  who  think  that 
the  whole  scheme  or  project  is  impossible  and  no  better 
than  a  dream.     Lord  Rosebery — I  don't  know  whether 
he  meant  to  refer  to  me — spoke  of  those  who  treated  the 
question  as  a  dream  and^something  not  at  all  practical  or 
practicable.    We  will  see.  Let  us  go  back  for  a  moment 
to  a  Httle  over  a  hundred  years  ago — the  year  1776, 
when  the  Declaration  of  American  Independence  was 
signed,  or  the  year  1783,  when  the  treaty  between  the 
revolted  Colonies  and  this  country  was  signed,  and  the 
independence  of  America  was  secured  for  ever.     Let  us 
go  back  to  the  time  only  ten  years  after  that  treaty 
was  signed.     What  was  the  condition  of  this  country  ? 
We  were  entering  on  a  war,  the  greatest  war  the  country 
was  ever  engaged  in,  one  that  caused  the  slaughter  of 
more  men,  and  a  waste  of  more  treasure  than  any  other 

258 


LAST  DAYS 

war  this  country  was  ever  engaged  in,  the  great  war 
with  the  French  Repubhc  and  the  French  Empire,  and 
that  war  lasted  with  scarcely  an  intermission — I  think  of 
only  a  few  months — for  more  than  twenty  years.  Now, 
suppose  that  the  American  Colonies  had  not  revolted,  or 
suppose  our  stupid  fathers  at  the  time  had  conquered 
them  and  subjected  them,  what  would  have  been  the 
result  ?  Why,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  American 
Colonies  would  have  been  involved  in  the  twenty  years' 
war  in  which  this  country  was  involved.  I  think  it 
was  much  better  that  they  were  attending  quietly  to 
their  own  business  and  going  on  in  their  own  way. 
Therefore  it  would  have  been  an  enormous  calamity 
for  the  Colonies  of  the  United  States — for  the  thirteen 
revolted  Colonies — if  they  had  continued  connected 
with  this  country,  liable  to  all  the  calamities  of  that 
frightful  war  which  for  more  than  twenty  years  not  only 
ravaged  great  portions  of  Europe,  but  subjected  the 
population  of  this  country  to  the  calamities,  miseries, 
and  sufferings  which  no  historian  has  attempted  to 
describe,  nor  can  any  of  us  with  the  greatest  power  of 
imagination  in  the  least  degree  picture  to  ourselves. 
Unfortunately  for  us,  our  war  policy  is  not  abandoned. 
We  are  always  getting  into  some  mischief,  and  I  am 
sorry  to  say  that,  apparently,  it  does  not  matter  in  the 
least  which  party  is  in  power.  I  would  not  give  two 
pins  to  choose  between  one  great  political  leader  and 
another,  or  between  one  party  and  another  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  We  have  had,  you  know,  only  very 
lately  the  war  in  the  Soudan.  We  had  only  three  years 
ago  a  condition  of  things  when  from  day  to  day  it  was 
expected  that  war  would  commence  between  this 
country  and  the  great  Empire  of  Russia.  You  recollect 
a  solemn  speech — I  do  very  well — a  solemn  speech  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's.  Borne  down  apparently  as  it  were 
by  the  consciousness  of  the  peril  that  was  impending, 
he  asked  Parliament  to  grant  eleven  millions  of  money — 

259 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

I  think  that  was  the  vote.     What  did  they  do  with  it  ? 
They  engaged  ships  and  spent  the  money  somehow  ; 
I  do  not  think  anybody  can  very  well  tell  how  it  was 
spent ;  but  we  know  it  came  out  of  the  pockets  of  the 
taxpayers,  and  they  never  got   any  of  it  back  again. 
Well,  what  happened  ?     This  is  what  happened — war 
was  not  declared,  but  the  pressure  was  such  that  it  was 
suggested  that  rather  than  go  to  war — we  had  had  one 
great  war  in  our  time  with  Russia — why  not  try  some 
mode  of  arbitration  ?     People  said — the  London  corre- 
spondents of  newspapers,  all  those  people  who  imagined 
facts  or  made  them,  said.  Why  cannot  you  get  the  King 
of  Denmark  to  arbitrate,  or  why  cannot  you  get  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  somebody,  anybody 
to   arbitrate?     Well,   nobody   was   more   anxious   to 
arbitrate  than  Mr.  Gladstone.     I  do  not  suppose  he 
is  more  in  favour  of  war  than  any  reasonable  person. 
When  it  was  announced,   somehow  arbitration   was 
proposed,  and  accepted,  and  likely  to  take  place  ;   but 
when  they  came  to  attempt  something  of  arbitration 
they  discovered  there  was  nothing  to  arbitrate  about. 
Well,  there  was  nothing  more  certain  than  that  there 
was  nothing  to  arbitrate  on.     We  are  landed  in  enor- 
mous difficulties  by  servants  who  ought  never  to  have 
been  trusted  on  the  Afghan  frontier,  and  we  have  been 
plunged  into  all  the  wars  of  my  time  by  servants  whom 
the  Government  have  employed  and  who  seem  to  have 
been  utterly  unworthy  of  the  confidence   that  was 
reposed  in  them.     I  should  like  to  ask  the  federation 
people  whether  the  Colonies  of  this  country,  Canada 
and  the  many  Colonies,  the  great  Colonies  that  cluster 
in  the  South  Pacific,  the  Australian  Colonies,  whether 
they  find  that  these  Colonists  will  be  willing  to  bind 
themselves  to  the  stupid  foreign  policy  of  war.     Will 
they  be  willing  to  undertake  the  responsibility  of  enter- 
ing into  wars  the  seat  of  which  is  10,000  miles  away,  and 
in  which  they  cannot  have  the  slightest  interest,  and 

260 


LAST  DAYS 

when  they  may  not  have  been  in  the  least  consulted  as 
to  the  cause  of  quarrel  which  this  country  was  rushing 
into  ?  In  my  opinion  the  Colonies  will  never  stand  it. 
If  I  were  a  Canadian,  or  Victorian,  or  New  South  Wales 
man,  or  Queenslander,  or  New  Zealander,  I  would  take 
good  care,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  that  my  voice 
should  never  go  in  favour  of  the  policy  of  the  old 
country  as  far  as  that  was  concerned.  It  would  be 
much  better  for  humanity  and  for  us  that  these  Colonies 
should  be  under  governments  of  their  own  and  inde- 
pendent, and  should  not  enter  into  quarrels  in  which 
they  were  not  concerned,  but  endeavour  to  maintain 
their  own  honour  and  not  take  part  in  the  miserable 
quarrels,  contests,  and  wars  which  for  a  long  time  past 
have  disfigured  the  history  of  the  kingdom  in  which  we 
live. 

Having  referred  to  the  difficulties  which  the 
system  of  tariffs  existing  in  the  Colonies  was 
calculated  to  throw  in  the  way  of  federation,  he  con- 
tinued : 

On  these  two  questions  I  should  rely :  on  the 
question  of  the  tariffs,  which  divide  the  Colonies  among 
themselves  and  divide  them  from  us,  and  on  the  ques- 
tion of  our  foreign  policy,  which  tends  to  place  the 
Colonies  all  over  the  world  in  a  situation  of  peril, 
because  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  peace  which  we  are 
able  to  [maintain — on  these  two  grounds  I  think  it  is 
quite  hopeless  to  expect  there  should  be  federation 
between  our  wide  Colonies  and  their  vast  populations, 
and  the  people  and  the  Government  of  this  country. 
I  feel  the  whole  thing  is  a  dream  and  an  absurdity ;  but 
it  does  not  follow  that  you  may  not  do  a  great  many 
things  by  binding  the  Colonies  to  us  and  creating  a 
perpetual  friendship,  I  hope,  between  them  and  the 
mother  country.      Now,  what    can    one   say  of  the 

261 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

future  of  our  race  and  of  our  kinsmen  ?  Is  that 
merely  a  dream  ?  By  no  means.  I,  who  have  no 
beHef  in  this  scheme  of  federation,  have  the  greatest 
possible  belief  in  the  future  of  those  Colonies; 
also,  I  hope,  there  will  be  strengthened  amicable 
relations  with  this  country.  Look  where  we  are  now. 
We  have  in  this  country — we  are  nearing,  at  any  rate 
in  the  United  Kingdom — a  population  of  forty  millions. 
Now,  I  think,  there  are  thirty-six  millions,  but  probably 
by  the  end  of  the  century,  which  is  not  far  off,  it  will  be 
forty  milhons.  In  Canada  and  Australia  there  are,  I 
think,  at  least  ten  millions,  or  probably  more  than  ten 
millions,  of  what  we  call  our  kinsmen  and  f ellow-subj  ects  ; 
but  in  the  United  States  at  this  moment  there  are  sixty 
millions  of  population,  which  by  the  end  of  this  century, 
in  all  probability,  will  reach  loo  millions.  Of  these  loo 
millions,  I  suppose  three-fourths  are  persons  of  our  own 
blood,  and  derived  from  ancestors  and  families  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  We  have — as  Mr.  Chamberlain 
has  told  you — nobody  who  can  discuss  any  of  these 
points  between  the  two  countries  without  referring 
to  the  fact,  the  gratifying  and  astonishing  fact,  that  we 
have,  with  all  these  150  milUons  that  I  am  speaking  of — 
and  I  am  not  saying  anything  of  the  people  in  the  West 
Indies,  or  in  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  or  in  the  vast 
spread  of  the  English  language  in  the  English  Empire 
in  India  ;  but  in  this  country  and  in  Canada  and  in  the 
United  States  there  are,  or  soon  will  be,  150  millions 
of  population,  nearly  all  of  whom  owe  their  birth  and 
origin  to  the  comparatively  small  country  in  which  we 
live.  It  is  a  fact  that  is  not  paralleled  in  any  past 
history,  and  what  may  come  in  the  future  to  compare 
with  it  or  excel  it,  it  is  not  for  us  to  speak  of,  or  even 
with  any  show  of  reason  to  imagine  ;  but  we  have  in 
all  these  millions  the  same  language,  the  same  literature, 
mainly  the  same  laws  and  the  institutions  of  freedom. 
May  we  not  hope  for  the  highest  and  noblest  federation 

262 


LAST  DAYS 

to  be  established  among  us'?  That  is  a  question  to 
which  I  would  ask  your  special  and  sympathetic  atten- 
tion. The  noblest  kind  of  federation  among  us,  under 
different  Governments  it  may  be,  but  united  by  race, 
by  sympathy,  by  freedom  of  industry,  by  com- 
munion of  interests  and  by  a  perpetual  peace,  we  may 
help  to  lead  the  world  to  that  better  time  which  we  long 
for  and  which  we  believe  in,  though  it  may  not  be 
permitted  to  our  mortal  eyes  to  behold  it. 

Bright  was  not  well  when  he  made  this  speech.  He 
had  been  poorly  during  the  previous  winter,  and  though 
better  in  March  1888,  had  not  completely  recovered. 
In  May  he  fell  ill  again,  and  never,  I  believe,  after  that 
time  left  One  Ash.  In  June  he  rallied,  and  in  July 
and  August  continued  slightly  to  improve.  During  the 
summer  he  spent  some  time  every  fine  day  in  the 
garden  at  One  Ash,  took  an  interest  in  public  affairs, 
watched  the  proceedings  of  the  Parnell  Commission 
with  special  attention,  and,  tenderly  cared  for  by  his 
children,  bore  his  indisposition  with  resignation  and 
fortitude.  During  his  illness,  he  was  interested  in  the 
Shakespeare-Bacon  controversy,  which  had  been  re- 
vived by  the  publication  of  Mr.  Donnelly's  book  in 
1888.  Among  the  books  read  to  him,  at  the  time,  was 
'The  Life  of  Thomas  Drummond'— a  man  whose 
character  resembled  his  own  in  fearless  love  of  justice, 
and  in  warm  sympathy  with  the  poor  and  the  oppressed. 

In  October,  he  had  a  serious  relapse,  and  suffered 
from  congestion  of  the  lungs  and  diabetes.  After  a 
slight  rally  he  became  worse  in  December,  and  took  to 
his  bed.     He  never  left  his  room  afterwards. 

Between  December,  and  March  1889  his  condition 

263 


JOHN  BRIGHT 

varied,  but  the  tendency  of  his  malady  was  to  get  worse. 
In  March  1889  he  became  very  ill.  He  was  very 
patient,  talked  cheerfully  to  the  members  of  his  family, 
as  they  came  to  him,  and  quite  realised  that  the  end 
was  approaching.  On  Tuesday,  the  26th,  his  mind  began 
to  wander,  and  he  never  quite  regained  consciousness 
afterwards.  Members  of  his  family  sat  up  with  him 
throughout  the  night,  and  on  Wednesday  morning,  the 
27th,  at  8  A.M.,  he  passed  peacefully  away. 

Bright  rests  in  the  Friends'  Burial  Ground,  Rochdale. 
His  grave  bears  the  simple  inscription — 

JOHN  BRIGHT 

Born  November  i6th,  18 11 
Died  March  27th,  1889 

He  will  live  in  the  memory  of  his  fellow-country- 
men as  the  greatest  moral  force  which  appeared  in 
English  politics  during  his  generation. 


264 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  Lord,  37,  64,  105 

Act  of  Union,  81 

Adams,  Mr.,  146,  151,  158 

'  AduUamites,'  187,  190 

Alabama  cruiser,  145-149 

Albert,  Prince  Consort,  qtd.,  37, 

38,48 
Aldis,  Rev.  Mr.,  22 
Allen,  Fenian^  70 
Alvanley,  Lord,  41 
American  Civil  War,  139-160 
Anson,  Major,  68 
Anti-Corn  Law  agitation,  28  seq. 

Bill,  48,  49 

League,  32,  42-44,  52 

Arnold,  Matthew,  246 
Ash  ton,  Thomas,  33,  34 
Ashworth,  Mr.,  33,  34 
Australia,  258-261 


Baillie,  H.,  133 

Baker,  Mr.,  23 

Bateson,  Mr.,  57 

Beaconsfield,  Lord,  6 ;  on  the 
Irish  Question,  50,  51,  65  ; 
Bright  on,  66,  182,  183  ;  on 
the  Fenian  petition,  68  ;  in 
Punch,  172,  173,  176,  177 ; 
his  Reform  Bill,  180,  181,  190- 
200  ;  Chancellor  of  Exchequer, 
189 

Beaufort,  Duke  of,  40 

Beesly,  Prof.,  67 


Bell,   Major    Clive    M.,   225-227 ; 

letter  quoted,  226 
Bentinck,  Lord,  78 
Berlin,  Treaty  of,  iii,  112 
Bigelow,  Hosea,  199 

John,  139,  145  ;  letters  from 

Bright,  143-145.  ^77.  178 

'  Bigelow  Papers,'  147 

Blair,  Colonel,  103 

Boyle,  Colonel,  103 

Bo  wen,  Lord,  228 

Brett,  Sergeant,  70 

Bridges,  Dr.,  67 

Bright,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Abraham,  19 

Mrs.  Albert,  159,  160 

Jacob  (father),  19,  24 

Mrs.  Jacob  (mother),  19 

John,    on    Irish    affairs,    2, 

12-14,  59  seq.,  162  ;  on  the 
Irish  Church  Question,  3,  24, 
54,  55,  72,  73  ;  on  the  Land 
Question,  3,  4,  13.  72-75  ; 
illness  and  death  of,  15  ;  Justin 
McCarthy  on,  16,  17  ;  on  his 
ancestry,  19,  20  ;  his  unfinished 
autobiography,  20,  21  ;  his  first 
speech,  22  ;  founds  Rochdale 
Literary  Society,  23  ;  on  capital 
punishment,  23  ;  meets  Cobden, 
23,  27  ;  on  State  Churches,  25, 
26,  30  ;  member  for  Durham, 
27  ;  on  the  Corn  Laws,  28,  29, 
32  seq.  ;  on  bishops,  29,  30 ; 
on    Ecclesicistical    Titles    Bill, 


265 


INDEX 


Bright,  John — contd. 

30 ;  and  the  aristocracy,  31, 
224,  235  ;  on  the  Constitu- 
tion, 32  ;  vindication  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  42,  43  ;  on  Cob- 
den's  retirement,  43-45  ;  on 
Protection,  46,  47,  257,  258  ;  on 
O'Connell,  52,  53  ;  visits  to  Ire- 
land, 54,  60  ;  and  coercion  in 
Ireland,  57,  58,  64,  77  seq.  ; 
on  Beaconsfield,  66,  182,  183  ; 
great  speech  on  the  Irish  Ques- 
tion, 64-67  ;  presents  the  Fe- 
nian petition,  70,71;  his  life  in 
his  speeches,  76  ;  and  Home 
Rule,  76,  81  seq.  ;  displeases 
the  Irish  Party,  77-80  ;  final 
breach  over  Home  Rule,  81-92  ; 
denounces  war,  93,  221-225, 
258-261 ;  and  the  Crimean  War, 
93,  112;  on  Palmerston,  102, 
130-136;  his  famous  allusion 
to  'The  Angel  of  Death,'  107, 
250;  loses  his  Manchester  seat, 
III  ;  ill-health  and  temporary 
retirement,  iii,  179;  meets 
ex-Empress  of  Russia,  11 1  ; 
and  India,  11 3-1 36;  on  the 
Indian  Mutiny,  117;  his  plan  for 
India,  121,  122  ;  on  Palmerston 
and  the  Burnes*  despatches, 
130-136 ;  and  the  American 
Civil  War,  137-160 ;  on  the 
future  of  America,  140,  150, 
151,  255-257;  on  the  Trent 
affair,  142,  143  ;  and  the 
Alabama  cruiser,  147-149  ; 
on  slavery,  156-159 ;  and 
Canada,  161-170,  255-257 ;  cari- 
catured in  Punch,  1 71-177  ; 
and  Parliamentary  Reform, 
171-200  ;  on  Gladstone's  Re- 
form Bill,  184,  185  ;  ridicules 
Horsman  and  Lowe,  185-189  ; 
on  Beaconsfield's  Reform  Bill, 
195-197,  200  ;  on  the  House  of 
Lords,  201-209,  257,  258  ;  per- 
sonal tracts,  210-254 ;  in  the 
Cabinet,  210,  211  ;  and  Queen 
Victoria,  211,  214,  216;   at  the 


Board  of  Trade,  216-220 ;  and 
Gladstone,  219,  220,  246,  247, 
254;  and  the  Tichborne  case, 
227-230 ;  on  Republicanism, 
231,  232;  on  Whittier,  233;  his 
hatred  of  Tories,  235,  236  ;  his 
voice,  232-234,  237,  242,  246  ; 
on  punctuality,  240  ;  and  chil- 
dren, 240 ;  favourite  books,  242- 
244 ;  on  Milton,  243,  244 ;  as  an 
orator,  246-248,  254 ;  his  advice 
on  oratory,  247,  248  ;  and  the 
Burials  Bill,  250-254 ;  last 
speech,  255-263;  on  the  Fed- 
eration of  the  Empire,  258-262  ; 
on  the  future  of  our  Colonies, 
262 ;  ill-health,  263  ;  death,  264 

Letters  quoted,  to  : — 
R.  Barry  O'Brien,  9-1 1,  15,  83  ; 
Cobden,  43-45  ;  Mr.  Lord,  46, 
47  ;  Justin  McCarthy,  70,  71  ; 
to  a  friend  in  Ireland,  72-74  ; 
Absolom  Watkin,  loi  ;  John 
Bigelow,  143-145.  151.  152,  177. 
178  ;  letter  on  the  Factory 
Acts,  225  ;  Major  Chve  M.  Bell, 
226,  227  ;  Mark  Harrison,  228- 
230  ;  Lord  Charles  Russell,  231  ; 
letter  on    Republicanism,    231, 

232  ;  to   Sir   Charles   Tennant, 

233  ;  letter  on  oratory,  247, 
248  ;  to  Bishop  Magee,  252,  253 

Works  :   '  Speeches,'  4 
Bright,  Mrs.  John,  215,  228 ;  death 
of,  26 

Messrs,   22 

Misses  (daughters),  239.  See 


also  under  Clark,  Mrs. 

William  (brother),  19 

the  late  W.  L.  (son),  92 

British  North  America  Act,   167, 

170 
Brooks,  John,  33 
Brougham,  Lord,  246 
Broughton,  Lord,  134,  135 
Bruce,  Michael,  244  n. 
Buccleuch,  Duke  of,  36,  39,  41  n. 
Buckland,  Dr.,  37 
Burials  Bill,  250-254 
Burke,  Edmund,  8 

266 


INDEX 


Burnes,  Sir  Alexander,  130-136 
Butt,  Isaac,  76 


Caine,  W.  S.,  92 

Canada,    140,    161-170;    and  the 

United  States,  255  seq. 
Canning,  Lord,  121 
Carlisle,  Lord,  246 
Carnarvon,  Lord,  169,  194,  195 
Chamberlain,  Rt.  Hon.  j.,  78,  92, 

255 

Clarendon,  Lord,  40,  190,  218 

Clark,  Mrs.  (daughter),  153  n. 

Clifden,  Lady,  216 

Cobden,  214  ;  first  meeting  with 
Bright,  23,  24  ;  and  the  Corn 
Laws,  26,  28,  32  seq.  ;  Morley's 
'  Life'  of,  29  w. ;  his  retirement, 
43  ;  and  Palmerston,  98  ;  letter 
to  Bright,  143  ;  and  the  Ameri- 
can Civil  War,  145  ;  in  Punch, 
172-174 

Cockburn,  Sir  Alexander,  149  n., 
236  n. 

CoUier,  Sir  Robert,  146 

Congreve,  Mr.,  67 

Copenhagen,  bombardment  of, 
97  n. 

Corn  Laws,  28,  32  seq. 

Cranborne,  Lord,  194,  195  ;  qtd., 
199,  200 

Crimean  Monument,  93 

War,  93-112,  179,  250  ;  cause 

and  history  of,  94-99 

Crompton,  Mr.,  67 

Davis,  President  Jefferson,  137 

Deasy,  Fenian  leader,  69 

Derby,  Lord,  21,  22,  38,  39,  179  n., 
180,  189,  194,  200,  207,  246 ; 
and  India,  121,  122  ;  in  Punch, 
173,  176  ;  and  the  Reform  Bill, 
183,  190  ;  and  Bright,  214 

Devon  Commission,  54 

Dickens,  Charles,  32 

Donnelly,  Mr.,  263 

Drummond,  Thomas,  14,  245 ; 
'  Life  *  of,  263 


Drummond,  Mrs.,  14,  15,  245 
Duffy,  Sir  Gavan,  91 
Duncannon,  Lord,  27 
Dunkelhn,  Lord,  189 
Dunlop,  Mr.,  130,  133,  136 
Durham  Commission.  166 


East  India  Co.,  113,  114  n.,  119, 

120 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  30 
Elgin,  Lord,    167 
EUice,  Edward,  256 
Englishman  qtd.,  116 
Eversley,  Lord,  qtd.,  216—220 


Factory  Acts,  225 

Farragat,  Admiral,  158 

Farrer,   Lord,   218 

Fenian  petition,  67,  68 

Society,  5,  13,  51,  63.  67,  89, 

90  ;    leaders  arrested,  69  ;    and 

the  suspension  of  the  Habeas 

Corpus  Act,  79 
Fitzmaurice,  Lord,  213 
Ford,  Mr.,  13 
Forster,  W.   E.,    14,  236  n. ;    his 

Coercion  Bill,  77 


Garrison,  W.  Lloyd,  159 

Gibson,  Mr.,  29 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  15,  16,  67,  216  ; 
on  the  Irish  Question,  2-9, 
73  ;  in  the  House,  6,  7  ;  and 
the  Irish  Land  Question,  10, 
65,  66,  73-75  ;  Bright  on,  66  ; 
and  Irish  Church  Disestablish- 
ment, 74  ;  and  Home  Rule,  82, 
86,  92  ;  letter  qtd.,  91  ;  and  the 
American  Civil  War,  149,  150, 
153-156 ;  on  the  defence  of 
Canada,  163,  164  ;  in  Punch, 
175-177  ;  his  Reform  Bill,  184, 
193  ;  and  Bright,  210,  211, 
219,  220,  246,  254  ;  and  crowds, 
237  ;  and  his  portrait,  237 ;  and 
war,  259,  260 

Goschen,  Lord,  174 


267 


INDEX 


Graham,   Sir  James,   33,   34,   37, 

98,  99 
Grant,  General,  157-159 
Granville,  Lady,  215 

Lord,  121,213;  qtd.,  214-216 

Gratton,  John,  18  ;  qtd.,  18^.,  ign. 
Gray,  Sir  John,  71 
Greville  qtd.,  40,  41 
Grey,  Charles,  216 

Lord,  39 

Grosart,  Rev.  A.  B.,  244  n. 


Hadfield,  Mr.,  133,  134 

Hardy,  Gathorne  (afterwards 
LordCranbrook),  195,  196  ;  and 
the  Irish  Church  Bill,  5-8 

Harrison,  Frederic,  67 

Mark,  228 

Hartington,  Lord,  82,  83 

Henley,  Mr.,  173 

Herbert,  Sidney,  37 

Holland,  Bernard,  169,  170 

Holmes,  William,  19 

Home  Rule  Bill,  77,  81  seq.,  220 

Horsman,  Mr.,  184,  248,  249; 
Bright 's  ridicule  of,  185-188 

House  of  Lords,  201-209,.  257,  258 

Hunt,  Mr.,  22 


India,  i 13-136 

Government  Bill,  212 

Ireland,  Penal  Code  in,  4  ;  English 
policy  in,  50-76  ;  Devon  Com- 
mission on,  54  ;  Coercion  in, 
56-58  ,  64,  65,  77  seq.  ;  famine 
in,  60,  61  ;  Home  Rule  for,  77 
seq.,  220  ;  and  America,  162 
Irish  Church,  Question,  2,  3,  50- 
55,  61.  72,  73  ;  Bill,  4,  5,  13. 
220  ;  disestablished,  74 
Irish  Land  Act  (1870),  10, 13,74,  80 

(1881),  74,  81,  86 

Irish  Land  League,  13,  79,  84,  86 
Irish  Land  Question,  9,  10,  13,  24, 

57,  58,  61,  72-74,  82,  83 
Irish    Reform     Bill     (1832),    80 ; 
(1850),  62,  63;  (1884),  75,  80,81 
Irish  World,  13 


Jacobs,  Martha  (afterwards  Mrs. 
Abraham  Bright),  19 


Kay,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joseph,  245 
Kear surge,  U.S.  cruiser,  149 
Kelly,  Fenian  leader,  69 
Kenealy,  Dr.,   228 
King,  Locke,  179  n. 
Kinglake,  qtd.,  224 


Laird,  Mr.,  148,  149 

Laird  &  Co.,  146 

Lansdowne,  Marquis  of,  63,  189 

Larkin,  Fenian,  70 

Lawrence,  Lord,  128 

Lee,  General,  157,  158 

Lhuys,  Drouyn  de,  logn. 

Lincoln,  President,  137,  138  ;  and 

the     Trent    affair,     141  ;      his 

*  resolution,'  152,  153  ;    relic  of, 

160 
Lindley,  Dr.,  37 
Little  wood,  J.  Stothert,  21  n. 

Mrs.  Sarah,  21 

WiUiam,  20,  21 

Logan,  poet,  244 

Lord,  W.  Y.,  46,  47 

Louise,  Princess,  216 

Lowe,    Robert    (afterwards    Lord 

Sherbrooke),  176,  184,  248,  249; 

Bright  on,  185-189 
Lucy,  Sir  Henry,  92  n. 
Lyall,  Sir  Alfred,  qtd.,  125-128 
Lyons,  Lord,  142  n. 
Lytton,  Sir  Edward  Bulwer,  109  w. 


Macaulay,  qtd.,  98 

McCarthy,  Justin,  on  the  death  of 
Bright,  15  ;  letters  from  Bright, 
70,  71  ;  quoted,  153,  190  ;  on 
Bright,  242-245 

McClernand,  J.  A.,  160 

McGee,  D'Arcy,  55 

McLaren,  Mrs.  (sister),  43,  250 

Magee,  Dr.,  251-253 

Maguire,  John  Francis,  241 

Malcolm,  William,  218,  219 


268 


INDEX 


Malet,  Sir  Lewis,  218 
Malmesbury,  Lord,  184,  193 
Married  Women's   Property  Act, 

239 
Maynooth  grant,  54,  55 
Meade,  General,  157,  158 
Melbourne,  Lord,  33,  41 
Millais,  Sir  John,  237 
Milton,   John,   234,   242 ;    Bright 

on,  243,  244 
Morley,  Lord,  43 
Morning  Star,  70,  242 
Motley,  qtd.,  145 


Nangle,  Miss,  229 
Napier,  Sir  Charles,  98 
Nevill,  Lady  Dorothy,  236  n. 
Nuttall,  Mr.,  22 


O'Brien,  Fenian,  70 

R.      Barry,      letters      from 

Bright,  9-1 1,  15,  83;  'The 
Irish  Land  Question  and  Pubhc 
Opinion,'  9  ;  '  The  Parliamen- 
tary History  of  the  Irish  Land 
Question,'  10  ;  *  Fifty  Years 
of  Concessions  to  Ireland,*  11  ; 
letter  from  Gladstone,  91 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  52,  54,  56,  69, 
poem  qtd.,  53 

O'Donoghue,  The,  82 

O'Loghlen,  Sir  Coleman,  5 

O'Malley,  Rev.  Thaddeus,  82 

Orton,  Arthur,  228-230 


Paget,   Alfred,   216 

Pakington,  Sir  John,  194-196 

Palmerston,  Lord,  64,  105,  iii, 
143  n.,  145  ;  and  the  Crimean 
War,  93,  94,  98,  99,  106,  112  ; 
Bright  on,  102,  130-136  ;  and 
India,  121  ;  and  the  Burnes' 
despatches,  130-136 ;  and  the 
Trent  affair,  142  ;  in  Punch, 
171  n.,  173  ;  and  the  Reform 
Bill,   1 81-183  ;    death,   183 

Paper  Duty  Repeal  Bill,  206,  207 


Paris,  Treaty  of,  no,  1 1 1 
Parnell,    C.  S.,    14,   15  ;    and   the 

Irish    Land    Act    (188 1),    86  ; 

Bright  on,  87,  89  ;    Gladstone 

on,  91 
Parnell  Commission,  263 
Peace  Society,  93,  221 
Peel,  General,  194,  195  ;   qtd.,  199 

Sir  Robert,  41,  47,  64,  162  ; 

and  the  Corn  Laws,  33-40  ;  and 
the  Maynooth  grant,  54,  55  ; 
Bright  on,  104  ;  on  the  Army, 
242 

Pennington,  Mr.,  254 

Pierrepoint,  Mr.,  40 

Playfair,  Dr.,  37 

Plowden's    'History   of   Ireland,' 

12,  13 
Potter,  Mr.,  240 
Priestman,   EHzabeth   (afterwards 

Mrs.  John  Bright),  26 

Jonathan,  26 

Rachel,  26 

Punch,  1 71-177,  200,  220 
Purvis,  Mr.,  27 


Quarterly  Review,  234 


Rawson,  W.,  33 

Record  Office,   12 

Reform  Bill  (1832),   179  ;    (1867) 

177,  193-200,  242,   248  ;    {1884) 

204-206 

Irish,  62,  63 

Reform  Bills,  32,   182-188 

League,  189 

Repeal  Association,  56 
Ripon,  Lord,  129 

Roebuck,  Mr.,   105,   153-158,  241 
Rogers,  Prof.  Thorold,  4 
Rosebery,  Lord,  257,  258 
Russell,  Dr.,  115,  139 
Russell,  Earl,  65 

Lord  Charles,  230, 23 1 ,  236  «., 

242 

G.  W.  E..  245  ;    qtd.,  247 ; 

Lord  John,  57,  64,  73,   120, 

135;    and  the  Corn  Laws,  30, 


269 


INDEX 


Russell,  Lord  John — contd. 

34-38  ;  his  Irish  Reform  Bill,  62, 
63  ;  on  the  Vienna  Note,  99  w. ; 
Bright  on,  102  ;  at  the  Vienna 
Conference,  105,  106,  109  n.  ; 
resignations,  109  n.,  189,  193  ; 
and  the  American  Civil  War, 
138,  158  ;  and  the  Trent 
affair,  141  ;  and  the  Alabama, 
146,  147  ;  in  Punch,  1 71-176  ; 
his  Reform  Bills,  173,  179,  181, 
202  ;    and  Bright,  183-186 

Russo-Turkish  war,  iii 

Rutland,  Duke  of,  40 


Tariff  Reform,  46,  255  seq. 
Tennant,  Sir  Charles,  232,  233 
Tenniel,  Sir  John,  171 
Tichborne  case,  227-230 
Tichborne,  Lady,  229 

Roger,  229 

Times,  37,  142,  231,  234 
Trent  affair,   140-143 
Trinity  House,   217 
Turville,  Mr.,  229 


United  States    of   America,  255 
seq. 


Salisbury,  Lord,  40,  207 
Semmes,  Capt.,  146-149 
Seward,  Mr.,  141 
Shakespeare,  Wm.,  244 
Shakespeare-Bacon     controversy, 

263 
Shelley,  P.  B.,  242,  244 
Sheridan,  qtd.,  237  w. 
Sherman,  General,  158 
Shuttleworth,  Sir  James  K.,  242 

Lady,  238 

Lord,  238 

Smith,  Rev.  J.,  160 

Reginald  J.,  K.C.,  226 

Sydney,  18 

Somers,  Lord,  221 

Stanhope,  Banks,   196 

Stanley,    Lady  Henry,  232,  233  ; 

letter  qtd.,  234 
Sullivan,  Mr.,  71 
Summer,  Charles,  152,  153  n. 


Tangye,  Sir  Richard,  248 


Veto  Bill  (1910),  208,  209 
Victoria,  Queen,  38,  41,  155  ;   and 

the  Trent  affair,   142  n.  ;     and 

Bright,  2X1,  214,  216 
Vienna  Note,  95,  96,  99 
ViUiers,  Charles,  45,  46 


Walpole,  Mr.,  189,  195 

Sir  Spencer,  35,  95 

Ward,  Sir  H.,  124  ,  v^ 

Watkin,  Absolom,  10 1 
WeUington,  Duke  of,  38-40  ;   and 

the  Anti-Corn  Law  Bill,  48,  49 
West,  Sir  Algernon,  171  n. 
Westerton,  Mr.,   103 
Whalley,  Mr.,  230 
Whittier,  poet,  233 
Wilberforce,     Bishop,     246,     248, 

249 
Wilkes,  Capt.,  141,  142,  145 
Wood,   Martha   (afterwards    Mrs. 

Jacob  Bright),  19 
Wordsworth,  William,  244 


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